Bolis Pupul, ‘Letter To Yu’

0:12Hello and welcome to the Monaco Weekly. I'm Fernando Augusto Pacheco, and for today's show I speak with Belgian-Chinese musician Boles Popol. We discuss his upcoming album, Letter to You, which is a homage to his late mother. Here is my conversation with him.

0:51I'm on a train, a train to you Not really knowing what I'll do I'm passing through looking at All these faces I've never met Boles Pupul, what a pleasure. I'm a big fan, so great talking to you here on Monaco Radio. my first question is a very simple one I mean you're releasing your debut album how is it to work by yourself more or less this time because your previous album was with Charlotte which I love, it's fantastic but this album feels quite personal, right? Yeah, that's correct I think it works in a different way, always happy if I work with Charlotte because we have this kind of chemistry where we can pitch ideas to each other very quickly and one thing leads to another and it always comes out somewhere you wouldn't have landed if you would have been just by yourself but for the solo records and the writing process it's more like solitude and something that comes from within myself and i have to dig for inspiration and stuff like that but on the other hand i have a very good soundboard it's uh dewey and stefan and David from SoloX, who support me when I'm working on music.

2:13And they always have some ideas or pointers of approaching my own music. Sometimes they see an idea before I see it. Or they can see the importance of certain topics that you touch upon. And they have ideas about, yeah, you should go deeper into that direction. And so although this is a solo record, I do have like a soundboard and people that also help me in completing the whole process. And they were very supportive because I think this album is very personal. It's called Letter to You, which is basically an album dedicated to your late mother, right? And perhaps it's not that you were ever disconnected from that heritage.

2:56But I mean, you were heavily involved perhaps in her life in Hong Kong as well. I think that was basically what the album is, right? yeah it's a it's a tribute to my mother i think she passed away in 2008 for me it was always a bit difficult because as a child growing up i wasn't really interested in my roots where i came from but when my mother passed away it became more and more important for me to go to hong kong and to find out where are our roots from and it took me 10 years after she passed away to go to hong But then when I was there for the first time, it inspired me to write this album.

3:39And it's something that I'm very happy that I went to Hong Kong and that I managed to get to know people there, that got to know the culture a bit more. But it's like an ongoing process. I want to go back like once a year, if that's possible, and find out also like how is Hong Kong cultural life, club culture, music culture, art culture. It's something that I'm trying to discover bit by bit. And I think it's very interesting as a European artist to look into that world as well. And I love that you look at all elements in Hong Kong. So one of my favorite tracks in the album is called Spicy Crab, which is one of the delicacies of Hong Kong, right?

4:24Have you tried some good ones there? Yeah, for sure. And I think that's one of the amazing things about Hong Kong is food culture. It's something that I lack when I'm in Belgium. It's something that I've always felt a bit frustrated. And when I went to Hong Kong or Asia, food is such an important part of culture. And in Belgium, we tend to not like to waste our time too much on food. And it has to be something that goes quickly. And we don't pay attention to all the flavors or health. I find it more logical in Hong Kong

5:08I'm very curious because I love the beats, there's something quite atmospheric about Completely Half which is I believe the first single and I was reading a bit more about the song apparently there's some recordings of the Hong Kong subway, perhaps that's why it feels very atmospheric I wonder, can you tell us a bit more about Completely Half and what did you want to transmit with this song? Well, actually, it's a song which states that I'm 100 % 50 % wherever I'll go, but I'm completely 50%. And it's also while I was in Hong Kong that I was walking around and just I was looking for something, but not really knowing what I was looking for, just like for some kind of a connection.

5:54And when I was walking around in the city, I saw, it happened a few times that I saw somebody and I thought it was my mom, but then just a split second and you know it's not her. And I wanted to translate that feeling in the music and also in the video by Bika de Porter. She made a very beautiful video and she played with that idea as well. So that's a sentiment that was very strong for me the first time when I went to Hong Kong. And this song is the result of that.

6:41You mentioned that you want to go there more often. And did you discover anything perhaps musically from Hong Kong that you were also inspired? Or that's something that is in your list that you want to actually engage more with some of the rhythms coming from there? Yeah, that's something I haven't explored enough, I think. Like the musical compartments of Hong Kong and on the musical level, what kind of music came from Hong Kong. And there's like movie history. but the musical part is something still unknown for me so there's still a lot to discover for me. Yeah, and I need to talk about one more track as well because it's a very emotional one right at the end of the album, Cosmic Rendezvous.

7:23I mean, that's perhaps the most personal one of them all, right? Yeah, because that's the song where you hear my mother's voice and I thought it was something that would be important on the record to have her voice as well because I don't have a lot of recordings of her but then I found this tape it wasn't too no in 1995 she must have been like 34 back then 34 35 and she was going through like a rough period she was about to separate from my dad and she had a lot of existential questions so she went to an astrologist and she was telling her all things about her life and about her future and you can hear her talk from time to time and you can also hear the astrologist talk.

8:12But one of the most important sentences and it's in Dutch, so people who don't speak Dutch won't understand but I can't translate it. The astrologist is telling her that she has a very big talent and that she has a very strong connection to the god-like mother. And my mother is like, yeah, but how can you know all of this? And that's a bit how my mother was. She was very interested in spirituality, but she was always also very critical. She didn't want to take on everything. I always had to have a good explanation why things were the way they were. And I really think having her voice on the record was a nice way to end the whole record.

8:55You definitely was very, very emotional. Are you planning to bring this album to the stage somehow? Yeah, I've already played a few shows and I think I have more focus on the dance floor when I play live. There's a lot of upbeat show and it's, yeah, I want to take it to the road and explore this as well. Like I did with Charlotte, we played so many shows. I think there's so much potential with the music that I made to take it on the road. And your music, I mean, we're talking here a lot about emotions and personal, but people that know your music, you always have a sense of humor in a way. I mean, and even in this album, I mean, some songs, they're very trippy.

9:41I mean, we spoke about spicy crab. I think that's also very important for your music, right? Yeah, of course. It's just part of my personality. And on my dad's side, my dad is actually, he's a comedian. Oh, really? I didn't know that. Yeah, he's very famous in Belgium. I was always aware of the fact that I was half Chinese. But on the other hand, everybody in Belgium, they knew my dad. He was on television, making television shows, radio shows. He was making cartoons for all the newspapers in Belgium. Yeah, he also made things for Charlie Hebdo, for The New Yorker, Titanic. So he's been around for a while and he's very important for me as well.

10:22And I think that humorous side is something that's very strong in my personal life as well. It helps me to take on life. So you do have in your genes also a little bit of a comedian there in a way. That's very good. Very interesting. I didn't know that. How funny. You know, I was going to ask as well, please, what about the song Cantonese? That's another one of my, I just wrote it down, one of my favorites. What can you tell us about Cantonese? Well, I don't speak any Cantonese. but i'm saying it in cantonese i translate it into cantonese and i'm saying i can't speak cantonese but my mandarin isn't any better so that's actually kind of like a a wink to my heritage that i'm yeah i can speak a little mandarin that i'm also frustrated about the fact that i can't speak fluent mandarin and cantonese is even more difficult it's so hard and i'm completely lost in translation when people talk Cantonese.

11:23So if they speak Mandarin, I can still figure out tiny bits, but yeah, Cantonese is too hard for me. Paul, just a curiosity, because I'm sure you have an excellent music taste. I wonder, what are you listening to at the moment? Or was there perhaps a particular type of music that influenced also the album? Yeah, it's a lot of things. Actually, it's also a period of five years. The record took five years to be finished. So in those five years, I listened to a lot of music. I think the first artist that comes to my mind when I thought about my solo record was Patrick Cowley. And I just liked the atmosphere in his songs and just not singing, but playing music and instrumental songs.

12:06And it kind of grew from there because I've been making music before as well. And I love to sing as well and write lyrics. but then one of my childhood heroes is back he's been so important for me oh delayed that record it was one that i i still love today and it's such an important record for me but also the beastie boys prince i love i love prince it's still a big loss at least that he passed away i'm sure that was still some good music that he's gonna release but yeah there's so many and important music. It's always hard to say it on the spot. I think those were really important in the beginning of my project.

12:53You gave us a lovely selection. Listen, Boles, what a pleasure. Thank you so much for talking to us.

13:14I'm lost in my city views The temper of the water Wrecked in my face The touch of my voice The source of grace

14:01That was Boles Pupul. His new album, Letter to You, is out on the 8th of March. The Monaco Weekly was edited by Lily Austin. Thank you for listening.

14:13Thank you.