Teki Latex; Frenchman of Italian descent, solo artist, one part of
TTC and co-founder of ridiculement frais French label
Institubes. I managed to trap the chap for a quick chat and a natter about what he's been up to, plans for the future and "that"
Yelle tune!
Shortie: First, can you introduce yourself to us?Teki: My name is Julien Pradeyrol some know me as Teki Latex, I make music, I rap, I DJ... I have a lot of friends who create excellent music and I try to push their stuff by releasing their music on Institubes or booking them at parties and things like that. I love women, fine clothes, nice hotels, Japanese food and the internets.
S: So what have you been up to since Party De Plaisr?T: I've been Deejaying everywhere, collaborating with the whole world and their mother, and pushing a lot of freestyles on the internet streets. I'm actually collecting a lot of these freestyles and collabs to put them on a mixtape that will go by the very non anglophone-friendly name of "Mes pelures sont plus belles que vos fruits". In the meantime you can check out some of these freestyles on my myspace and all over the internets.
S: Other than yourselves and IAM back in 90s there haven’t really been many French HipHop style MCs to really cross over to the English speaking market. Do you think yours and TTC’s success has anything to do with the fact you guys have such a big Electo influence?T: Yes maybe no? yes. We wanted to have our own sound and we were just a bunch of french dudes experimenting with rap and club music and i guess people found it cute and exotic. And now everybody's doing the whole "rapping over electro" thing. Anyway some people did it before us, some people will do it after us, but i guess we do it well.
S: What’s happening with TTC? Any plans for mew material?T: There's talk of a TTC/Modeselektor collaboration album but to be honest we haven't really started working on it yet. We're taking a well deserved break after 5 years of intense non stop touring and promoting. We probably won't start working on new ttc material before cuizinier finishes his long awaited first LP, that's for sure.
S: You played Dublin in ’07 as part of the Let’s French Music Festival, how was that?T: My friends from Dublin gave me a really cute miniature Guinness glass and a leprechaun glass as well, that was good fun and the show was fun too. Shout out to the Dublin crew.
S: Where’s your favorite place to play?T: Montreal where TTC are demi gods and strippers dance to my songs in actual strip clubs.
S: A lot of French artists I’ve interviewed have commented on the music scene over there being kind of dead right now. Would you agree?T: The music scene? No... I don't know, I'm doing stuff, I'm the music scene, I'm not dead so the music scene is not dead. There's zillions of French kids making great music popping out of nowhere every day, go listen to the new
Bobmo single and then tell me who's dead.
S: How about Yelle? You a fan?T: Yes she makes me gay
S: You and Cuiz took a bit of a hit on “Je Veux Te Voir”, how did you feel about that when the song got so big?T: We didn't mind when it was an internet thing, back in the day no one cared about myspace or anything like that, it wasn't "real". But then it got very real and the song blew up, and obviously we got pissed and got real sad thinking about all the money she was stealing from us with that song and biting our whole swagger and things. I'm still kind of mad at Cuizinier for not answering, or doing a song with her, but at the end of the day that's his problem. And ultimately... I don't feel that bad about Yelle and the song anymore, she did what she had to do, we were too foolish and proud to turn it to our advantage I guess. GET THAT MONEY GURL
S: So aside from your own projects, you’re responsible for a lot of what goes on at Institubes. How’s that all going for you? T: I'm the co-founder of institubes yo! Things are all good. We're splitting institubes into smaller labels, the dance artists will stay on institubes, the more rock / twisted pop artists will be on a separate sublabel, the rap artists on another sublabel. And we are also starting an internet only imprint with orgasmic and i as A&Rs, dedicated to stupid minimal wonky tribal house, called Sound Pellegrino. Coming soon to a beatport near you. And the surkin album is gonna be bigger than the beatles. Oh and go check the new
Jean Nipon video from his single dropping NOW on Institubes.
Quickfire Questions:
You got a cool style, what’s your favorite clothing brand? (I’m guessing Kidrobot btw)
No it's actually Lacoste even though Ralph Lauren is killing it this year. I always dress preppy, I just choose fun colors and good combinations of polos and cardigans.
Worst Tune Ever?
That Fatboy Slim "Check it out now the funk soul brother" song.
Best Tune Ever?
Abba "Dancing Queen"
Favorite Movie?
The Goonies
Teki Latex; label boss, preppy dresser, Abba fan!!!
Following a string of quality remixes, New York outfit Designer Drugs are dropping their first original tune in a while. With Halloween fast approaching, the timing couldn't be better for the release of this one entitled "Zombies!" The track is out on 28th Oct on iHeartComix! with "Back Up On This" as the B-side.
Teki Latex; Frenchman of Italian descent, solo artist, one part of TTC and co-founder of ridiculement frais French label Institubes. I managed to trap the chap for a quick chat and a natter about what he's been up to, plans for the future and "that" Yelle tune!
Finally some new Chromeo... I'm a massive fan of Dave1 and P Thugg so it's about time I heard some new stuff from them that's not a remix of Fancy Footwork. They've taken Treasure Fingers' "Cross The Dancefloor", made a few subtle tweaks, added some cowbells and some nice Chromeoesque / vocoder tinged vocals to make this one a little better than the original in my opinion.
Bit Thief Comes from Missouri and makes bass heavy tunage... That's all I know about him at this stage. He's fresh onto the scene and banging out some remixes of my favorite HipHop tracks like Positive K's "I got a man" and Onyx's anthem "Slam" posted below. Also posted is one of his originals called "Double Dare 3000". Not as much club banger as a slow burner still a nice little tune nonetheless...
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