On the occasion of his visit to Paris last July to present live his new album Le Bleu du Rouge. Justfocus met Bonnie Li. As captivating and exciting as her music, the singer, originally from Marseille but a true child of the world, takes us on a nice journey into her electronic universe, soft and romantic.
Relive his elegant and mysterious performance in pictures thanks to our photo report.
The day after her concert at Supersonic and after the recording of an acoustic session at the foot of the Sacré-Coeur we found Bonnie Li in a café in the Montmartre district for an interview rich in beautiful stories.
Justfocus: Can you introduce yourself for our readers who don't know you yet?
Bonnie Li: I'm Bonnie Li. I am a singer-songwriter, performer and I do trip-hop. I write mostly in English, French but also in Mandarin because I grew up in China and it's a very big part of me. I do melancholic, romantic, atmospheric songs and I just released an album called Le Bleu du Rouge. This is!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVnuflmGS8k
JF: Can you tell us how to start your musical adventure?
BL: I started very small, music has always been a part of me, but I started seriously around 20. I told my parents , "That's it! ». I was afraid to tell them, "I'm going to be a singer." I was like, "Who are you to say "I'm going to be a singer"?!». But suddenly I started, I did a singing school and performing arts in Paris for 2 years called La Manufacture Chanson. After, I did an alternative music school called Atla, still in Paris, which is more based on music theory, music theory… Because I didn't feel legitimate yet to compose my own tracks. I started doing a lot of musical projects, with a lot of different bands. I started my own project about 10 years ago, with a lot of stuff on the side, on and off, but yes it's still been about ten years! Since then I have released two albums, three EPs, with more or less long breaks between, because life made me want to take the time.
"The more you have a melting pot, the more it swarms, the more different it is, the more I feel foreign, the more I love."
JF: I read that your whole life has been shared between several countries. How did you experience this multiculturalism growing up?
BL: It nourished my music, it nourished me. It was incredibly rich! We arrived in China, finally, in Hong Kong which was still an English colony at the time, I was 8 years old. We left I was 16, so I really evolved there and I loved it! It was completely fabulous! All these smells, this noise, this swarming everywhere. That reassures me a lot. I like these big cities for that too. All these sounds, the cacophony…
When you're little, you have a lot of imagination, so it was magical! All the smells of incense, all these stories of legends… There are buildings in the mountain that have holes… Maybe I'm extrapolating there, isn't it? (laughter) On the road that leads from Causeway Bay, a district rather in the center of Hong Kong, to Stanley, which is at the end of the beach so at the other end of the island, there is a rather winding road and on the side of the hill, a huge building but with a square-shaped hole. And I was like, "But why did they make a giant hole?Because there is a housing problem, so they build, they build, they build all the time because there is a huge population and not enough space. It is a small island. In fact, it was to let the dragon that was nesting at the top of the mountain pass, so as not to frustrate or annoy him. Fantastic! I grew up obviously also making my own stories and so that was really very important!
I have an older sister who did a Chinese university in Nanjing and it had nothing to do with Hong Kong which was still very different from Main China. Traveling in China taught me a lot! Already, I loved this atmosphere, but also to see the status of women in societies different from ours but which was mine in the end, to also see the treatment of me as a white … It made me ask myself a lot of questions. It really marked me and it's something that followed me a lot, so feminist … In my music, the woman has a fairly important place, she has a somewhat central role.
But yes, the more you have a melting pot, the more it swarms, the more different it is, the more I feel foreign, the more I love. I really loved being there!
After that, I did a little bit of the United States, a little bit of Canada and then the France. Then finally Germany. I went there 6 years ago because I fell in love with Berlin and then, I was fed up with Paris, this aggressiveness as a girl in fact, it's very violent. There is a pressure from men that you feel and that is very heavy. I didn't want to live like that at all. So Berlin… Fantastic, where all freedoms are possible, nobody cares who you are, who you sleep with and what skin color you have. And that was very, very nice!
But now, Berlin 6 years later, that's enough. (laughter) I got tired of it, the city changed and then I changed. You grow up, you want something else… So, Marseille. (laughter) Why not! I go back to the roots because my family is from Marseille but I have never lived there so I also discover at the same time! I also had a strong desire for sunshine, light, brightness. It's something I missed a lot. In Berlin you don't have that at all. (Laughter) So there you have it!
"From Germany, I took away the electronic music that is the basis in everything I do. I owe my solo project to Berlin"
JF: I imagine that this multi-culturality allowed you to draw things from each country to create your music?
BL: Yes! I think it's even a big big mix of a little bit of everything. From China, as I said, it is the woman at the center of my art because she is completely at the bottom of society. Otherwise, these languages that I love! That's why I also mix a lot of English all the time with little bits of French, little bits of Mandarin … I didn't want to do German, it didn't come to me… I understand it and I manage it, but I speak it very badly.
On the other hand from Germany I retained electronic music which is the basis in everything I do. My solo project, I started it by visiting Berlin in… 2012, 2013, 2014 ? Something like that. I was staying with friends who had opened a queer bar. There was a little scene and they said , "Well, Bonnie, you do what you want!». I had my pedal, I looped a lot in my music at the time. It's still a little bit present today. So, I jammed by making loops and it worked, these loops became my first songs . So, I owe my solo project to Berlin!
JF: How do languages relate to your writing process? Do certain lyrics come naturally to you in a language or do you choose which story you tell in which language?
BL: No, everything is super natural. I never think about which passage I'm going to write in which language but it's true that I was more inclined to write in English because it's easier for me. French is scary. (Laughter) But I want it more and more terribly! To have come back in France, it makes more sense and it is a language that sings by itself. It's so nice to sing it, to bite its words. I think I would come to that.
To come back to your question, no, it's more about feeling. I'm going to start a verse, hum it and then tac, I have a little gimmick that comes to me in Mandarin. There are also no specific topics that always come to me in the same language, it's really a melting pot.
JF: You recently gave a concert at Supersonic. It was one of the first times you presented the songs of your last album Le Bleu du Rouge, how did it go?
BL: Yes! It was the second time I sang them live. I did a release in Berlin with Al'Tarba some time ago. But at Supersonic it was the first time that I presented this new formula as a duo, with Paolo who is my love and who was a producer on Le Bleu du Rouge. It was quite stressful! (laughter) It's funny, I've been a tracker like it hasn't happened to me in a bunch of years and it's fantastic! It was good stress. I couldn't wait. Very eager to touch you, to have you, to seize this, this energy. Apart from a few small technical problems, the rest was fantastic! It was really super nice, only happiness, as usual!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpx7-qAA5Qk
JF: Since your album was released at the end of April, I imagine it was prepared during the pandemic. How has it been for you and how has COVID affected your career?
BL: The beginning of the pandemic cut me off in the middle of the tour… 3 tours were cancelled, including two in the United States, so it was a little frustrating… (laughs) But in the end I lived it very well me this lockdown! (laughter) I was in Berlin, I was coming back from a month-long tour of Italy with 17 dates, so I played well, I was happy to settle down a bit.
Well after, I asked myself a little too much… but in the end it was perfect because we said with Paolo: "Well we can not tour, let's create". We ended up in our small apartment in Berlin with our two dogs in a kind of cocoon. We had a studio that closed because of the pandemic, so we said " Good home studio" and we redid everything at home. It was good, we really put ourselves in "we do good, we create" mode.The songs came by themselves, everything flowed easily, it was pretty cool! It's the first time for me that this period of creation goes so well, where it's fluid, where it's really sweet. So very well lived! (laughter)
"The creation of this album was more focused on me, on my emotions, on memories that I wanted to explore, sensations that I wanted to put flat."
JF: How was your creative process?
BL: I had a desire to refocus and not make tons of them. Before it's true that I made a lot of loops and a lot of layers, I stacked, I stacked, I stacked … It was a kind of organized mess, which was very good, but Paolo told me "Now, with the evolution you have had and also as a woman, you no longer need to hide behind diapers and diapers" and it is true. So this desire to make less loops, to return to something sung in lead without having too many choirs behind.
It always starts with me at the piano who will tap or scribble something and tac I will do my first chords and then it flows. But here, we are really for the first time in writing together. He is Italian and he also writes on his own. He wrote in Italian, he translated it into English, in his completely broken English, I translated it into French, just to have an exercise a little more fucked up (laughs). Afterwards, I translated it back into English so that we could understand each other. (Laughter) It made Le Bleu du Rouge !
It was nice to work together like that, in ping pong. In doing so, it reminded me a lot of when we were little and we played with rubber bands, either by hand or on the feet, jumping over and everything. That was kind of our method of creation. This hodgepodge of "I send you the ball, tac I translate it into a language and tac I'm going to put a verse in Chinese". (laughter)
https://open.spotify.com/album/4GhxCRcuL82Y0SOyrhLjB8?si=eeWd4YW7RwmWqAEVQ-9geA
JF: What were your influences for this album, what inspired you?
BL: This lockdown. The fact of really being in confinement in a kind of re-introspection. The desire to be in something more romantic with myself does it too. I am a very romantic person, but very outward-looking. There I said to myself "Ok, it's time to do yourself good, to be gentle with yourself". It was more focused on me, on my emotions, on memories that I wanted to explore, sensations that I wanted to put flat. So, the songs came out of that. I was in something very in love too so a lot of songs on the theme of love: self-love, self-love, love for a city, love for a memory, too much love, ego trip… And it happened, it sank.
JF: And in terms of musical influences?
BL: So no, nothing at all. (Laughter) We listened to nothing, we went into "no no, we close everything, we don't go out" mode. Well we were in lockdown obviously, but we just took out the dogs and then back home, me at the keyboard, him at the machines. We were really in our bubble.
JF: Regarding your music in general, are there any artists who have particularly inspired you?
BL: Yes, so obviously Portishead which was a monstrous band for me! They changed my life. (Laughter) Finally "changed my life", let's say that they really marked my life a lot. Bjork of course too. The ease with which she moves from one universe to another and makes you explore different worlds has influenced me a lot. After, these bands don't really have an impact on my music, well obviously you feel these influences in what I do but I've never really listened to a specific band while composing.
I also listened to a lot of folk as a kid, finally a teenager. A lot of rock too, Radiohead to donf. (laughter) I think my slightly melancholic side comes from there! (laughter)
JF: Visually Le Bleu du Rouge is very worked, very aesthetic, with a slightly retro and cinematic side. Where does it come from?
BL: Yes so I like second-hand clothes, antique objects, things that have a story, so that's enough me. The cinematic side is also what I am often told about my music, that the songs I make are like paintings.
In fact, the story of the cover is funny. I flew and there was a film by Almodovar, All About My Mother, which I love and that I re-watched. So you have to know that I Almodovar, every time I cry hot, it's stupid (Laughter). At one point, poof , I stop the film on the stage where the main actress is in front of the theater in which she plays, there is this red wall and the name of the play tagged in yellow and there I did " Whaou" ! It was at the very beginning of the creation of Le Bleu du Rouge and I said "Ok album cover! ». So yes, the influence is Almodovar!
JF: How would you describe the album in 3 words?
BL: I would say… purple, romantic and nebulous.
JF: If you had to choose just one track on the album, what would you say?
BL: Oh it's hard… (laughter) I want to say Stalker because we just played it in an acoustic session and it's a track that moves me! (laughter) But… I will say Your crown. It's a title I composed while watching On The Spectrum, a documentary series about children and young adults with autism and oh there… It upset me! I met a lady who has an autistic child, we talked a lot and lo and behold, I wrote this song. Maternal love for the theme of this song. It's a title that moves me enormously every time I sing it! (laughter)
"There are beautiful things that happened on this album, I've never played in Asia but maybe that will change soon!"
JF: You mentioned a tour in Italy and the United States. Does it seem easier to you than in France? How is your career abroad?
BL: It was a little easier than in France yes, but also because for my previous productions, with my label, we did not approach the France. I had a press team in Germany and Italy. No team in the US but strangely I easily found dates and I toured with a fabulous artist based there called Tolliver, so I think it helped.
For Le Bleu du Rouge, since there is a little more French than on the previous ones, I did "On va faire la France! ». A desire to come back in fact too!
JF: What about Asia?
BL: So I've never played there before, but… Maybe that will change soon! (Laughter) That would be fantastic. There are beautiful things that happened on this album, it is in playlist on platforms like Resso and Joox, which is a bit the Spotify of Southeast Asia. Consequently… agency potentially interested… So fingers crossed!
JF: Speaking of the future, what is the program for the next few months?
BL: Working on the deluxe version of the album. Make a remix too. I have a small selection of artists for potential collaborations for the start of the school year. Then prepare the live car for this deluxe there will also be a release in Paris. There are also small dates that fall, so we will prepare that. A big tour in Italy too, scheduled for the end of October. So a lot of creation! And the sea and the sun! (laughter)
JF: Do you have any artists who are not yet very well known to introduce us?
BL: So yes! The Clinic Rodeo. A rock duo. They are fantastic! It's that love, they are pretty fabulous! So yes, they I like a lot, then on the album I invited an artist called Coeur. She does a kind of rap-trap-song-romantico… super! Really great!
Recently, I also discovered a band on Insta that does little guitar-voice type lives, it's called Garçon Fille. To check! Oh and I discovered another artist, Rosemarie, piano-voice, it's super good what she does!
Photos of the concert at the Label's Supersonic: ©Ludivine Pellissier – @ludpellissier_musicphoto
