After various experiences in the field of art, Lukas Abdul feels more ready than ever to conquer the music scene as he sees fit. It is therefore with his first self-produced EP, that you will discover or rediscover. Because yes, you may have already seen Lukas Abdul on your small screen, in The Voice or in a movie. Like his life and this interview, we went through a lot of emotions, and we especially laughed. Discover the Inkipit of this new musical adventure, free and independent.
Hello Lukas! Can you introduce yourself?
My name is Lukas Abdul, as my name suggests, I'm not necessarily Swedish, but Lebanese (laughs). I am a singer, actor, in fact I am a free artist, I do a lot of things, I model, I do comedy, I am author / composer / performer. And above all I am an independent artist because I am self-produced and I carry my project with my team, but I remain the captain of the ship, the captain on board, not Captain Haddock (laughs). What I do, what I sing, is what I promote in my life; the fusion between cultures. I like the clash of cultures but gently. In love anyway, it's a shock, it's a chic-chac-choc more than a shock (laughs). And this is what I let transcribe in my music which is tinged with oriental or, very electronic.
You've loved art and creation since you were little. But you decided to start studying medicine that you stopped to embark on the artistic world. Can you explain why you started these studies? What was the trigger that pushed you to stop them?
Of course! So actually, I did these studies for my parents. Because I come from a family where we don't listen to music, we don't listen to the radio, we're not very artistic. I come from a fairly modest socio-economic background. And where I grew up, it's not too much realization of your dreams that is the watchword. So inevitably, since I was quite good at school, my parents always predefined for me a fairly tidy life, quite on track, who will be doctor, doctor, married, child… Go good bye! At the age where I could choose for myself, I saw that there was still a certain dichotomy between, what my parents wanted and what I aspired to. At first, I wanted to honour them, because they are people who left their country at war, moreover, to come and give my brothers and me a chance in France.
But in the end, you can't realize other people's dreams without even trying to make your dream come true.
So I put everything down and I started doing theater and then I was spotted to do The Voice and then from thread to needle, voilà, I sing, I earn my living, I'm very happy. My parents are re-vised, proud! I started to play on radios, radio-orient, france-maghreb, france bleu, and not long ago my mother turned on the radio. She hears me on Radio Orient and she calls me right after saying: I am proud of you my son, I am proud of you. I love you! I say: I love you too Mom! And so there you have it, it's a great story of victory. I haven't broken through yet, but I've broken into my parents' hearts and that's just as important. It's important differently, but it's just as beautiful!
You have done theater performances, played in films, short films. Can you tell us about these experiences? How did you prepare and experience them?
It was before I really made music, it was more theatre. I've always had music in me, but the first projects I had were theater projects. How did I prepare? Jumping into the bath! I've always been a bit of a savage, I've never been afraid to go for it, to dive into the mass. So I fully dived in and did a lot of projects trying to stir up my network. A bit like a monkey stirring a tree while waiting for a banana to fall. I stirred until I found that banana, believe me (laughs). And then, I mostly had a blast actually. I only do what makes me feel good, so from the moment there's something where I don't enjoy it anymore, I always try to remember it, even when I'm in a studio or when I'm on a set and shooting, it can be very long. I try to remind myself all the time of motivation, of why I'm here. It allows me to live everything with more lightness. To refocus on the fact that I realize my dream, that it is the fact of doing. It's the path that counts, not just achieving your dream, because I got to be a millionaire in 2022. I moved away a little from the question, but in any case that's really the thing, to say that realizing your dream is the fact of going, diving, rolling up your sleeves. And to think: Okay, from the moment it becomes problematic, then I think twice. Do I really want to continue in something that doesn't necessarily make me happy? Or do I want to overcome this problem by giving myself even more and because I know that there will be even more happiness and joy? 
In 2016 you participated in The Voice, was it always in the same perspective of "doing what makes me happy"?
That was something else. It was the first time in my life that I came across a music producer who told me: Well, we're going to do The Voice, so it's going to train you. Actually, I thought it would be more of a training. I said to myself: I'm 22 years old, I've never made music and well I'm going to do the biggest musical formation in the world which is The Voice! And in fact, it's true that I had screwed up a little, it's not a training at all, it's a contest (laughs). What was good was that within the competition I trained at high speed. Except that, of course, it is neither the place nor the time and then it is not the setting! I was really confronted with the trick of thinking: Okay I'm surrounded by people who are killers, it's up to me to be a killer now or just pretend. It went pretty well overall, I really enjoyed the adventure. I signed for an album after that in one label, then then in another label where I was able to try myself again and learn the workings of composition, writing, production, all stages of a musical project. And then, with all these experiences, I thought: Okay. Now I don't feel free enough, I don't feel listened to enough.
Like many artists on labels, and I decided to, once again, take off again and self-produce.
This means that today, I am master of my project. It took me a while to release titles but sometimes, time is essential to do things right. And me, it allowed me not only to release titles that I am very proud of, but that resemble me and that are entirely my paw. That I produce, write, compose etc. I still work with a team, but they are only there to refine my research or my quest to share emotions. She's not here to tell me: You have to do this, you have to do that. There's no de, you must, there's more, if you want to get where you want to go, maybe you should refine your style when you write because. So it's even more fulfilling. My quest is really that of fulfillment.
Going back to The Voice, did you decide to sign up or did we pick you up?
They came to get me. In fact, it's a little bit of everything. There is never only one cause for something. They came to get me, at the same time I have a friend who signed me up, she was in the same label as me. And I thought that since my producer had told me that we were going to make an album, it was time to learn the ins and outs of this job, and that The Voice would be a perfect training to learn how to become a singer.
Did you start singing before?
I've always sung, ever since I was a baby. But in my room, in the basement of my medical school to flirt with my ex (laughs). I sometimes sang at dinners with my cousins where we put on shows, I forced them to do the choreographies with me (laughs). Music has always been part of my way of existing, because when I was younger, I was not very focused on the other. I really sang in my world and my world was a magical world in music where I talked to imaginary beings (laughs). So it's always been a part of me. Now, doing it professionally, I think I was waiting for someone to reach out to me. And I was handed it in 2016. I said to myself: Well, let's go! Roll up your sleeves once again, the theater, we're going to take a little break for a year, the time to do The Voice. And then in the end, that's what brought me even more to myself, to today. Today if I am called, it is not because I played in Scorsese's last film, but because I released Les maux bleus!
Can you tell us about this title Les maux bleus? Is it a tribute to the blind auditions of The Voice that allowed you to launch your musical career?
More than a tribute to The Voice and blind auditions. I don't necessarily like to reduce things to a single origin. It is both a tribute to my whole adventure The Voice, to all my musical adventure that began with Les mots bleus, and which, today, begins again with Les maux bleus but differently. It is a tribute to this song, which for me is the most beautiful song of French song and a tribute to Christophe. So to all of my musicality I would say, or my musical history anyway. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LguKylnI0pU&t=153s
You are now preparing your project, the Inkipit, your first EP, can you present it to us or is it too early?
No, no, I can! You see, the good thing about being free is that, for example, we usually say: No! Don't talk about your next title! I do what I want. Even if I have my manager or my artistic director who will tell me: We should not talk about Beirut … So my next song is called Beirut (laughs)! You see, here, while being very friends, we all get along very well, but it's a pleasure to be free. I have friends who can't even make me listen to their songs because they swore they wouldn't make them listen. But peace and love, everything is fine! Stop taking your head, it's just music! It's great, but in the end, it's just music, it's fun. You have to calm down with the invisible issues. But then, the Inkipit, a project of 5 / 7 songs, I don't know yet. I think it will be around seven, that's a nice number. An inkipit is the first pages of a theatrical work or the first notes of a musical work. It sets the scene and so it's an EP that will set the scene for my coming to the music world, and that will talk about that. It will be a set of electroriental song, in a word I write it: electroriental. Where I will tell, my pains, my experiences, my relationship to my origins and all this in song. Always with a darbouka or an Arabic violin that will hammer the tempo.
In view of the exceptional health situation, how do you think you can defend your EP? Do you plan to do live-streams?
Why not live-stream. After that I am supported by some radios. So what's cool is that I sing a lot no matter what. I am invited by France Bleu, I prepare a big live. I am adopted by the Lorraine region, I live between Paris and Metz and I will do a big showcase of 30 minutes to France Blue in Metz. It's also my way of defending my songs. I'm not very live, not very digital. I love life, I love the human, I like the relationship with the other and in the live it lacks all this dimension of the other. It's always very nice, of course, to read beautiful comments, but it's still beautiful virtual comments. And me, what I want is to see the eyes of the people, to listen to the applauses, to feel them, to see them dance, to see them close their eyes to travel a little with me while I sing. I think I would go more outside to Châtelet (laughs), if necessary, in guitar voice, than live stream. On the other hand, my next single comes out on April 16th.
It's true that live streaming, and different artists say it, it's not like concerts and it feels even more when you've done a lot of scenes.
Exactly! Especially since I've already done concerts in front of ten, fifteen thousand people. Just like I did concerts in front of 100 people, in restaurants. And both are two exercises that I love! Of course, I prefer the fifteen miles because it immediately gives something more. But I couldn't live without singing for a small committee, that's for sure. I also need this intimate relationship with others and so, yes, the live stream, it lacks a whole part of life.
Can we talk about your sources of inspiration, you were talking about the Eastern Electronic. Can you tell us what are your sources of inspiration and the artists with whom you would like to collaborate?
My sources of inspiration are pain. I noticed growing up and writing, that it always starts from pain. No matter what pain, no matter the subject, it is always a lack, a pain, a sorrow that inspires me and to that will be added: where do I want to take this pain, will I make it travel … For example I do electroriental, but in one of my pieces the east it will be China, so the far east. In another piece, it's really going to be the east, Andalusia. In another piece, it's going to be Maghreb sounds more than anything else. I feel like I'm a child of the world. We're going to have India in the song Karma that came out. My inspirations will be the music of the Eastern world, because I remain more and more sensitive to Eastern culture. Even in my philosophy, I am a Muslim Buddhist. Even that, I'm a brothel (laughs), an oriental brothel that's exactly who I am, a mic-mac! So my inspirations are going to be pain and the East. Then, for the artists with whom I would like to collaborate. I would love to collaborate with Lomepal because in terms of musical tastes and the relationship to pain, because he also to this relationship to pain, I find it good. I would love to collaborate with Yseult because she paved the way for independent artists by saying: Well, we can do everything ourselves and it can work! And it would really be an honor to be a standard-bearer like her. I really want to be a standard-bearer for independents! 
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We're going to talk about something else that is also important to you. You are very involved in community life. Can you tell us about your actions and tell us what your motivations are?
Of course! I told myself that I would do medicine if and only if, I worked in the treatment of cancer and more particularly childhood cancer. It's a fight that has always inspired me and since I was little. So who says inspired, necessarily says want to put my hand to the paw. In addition, I have this relationship with sick children which is not a report where I see them as patients, as people who suffer. I see them as human beings, little ones, with whom I just have a good time. My goal is to make them laugh, that we laugh and that everything else does not exist. So that's what I do, I do events at Christmas for example, when we could. Unfortunately, it's a little more complicated. I do events at the hospital where I go to sing with sick children, laugh, dance with them. Then I am in the association Juste Humain in Paris, where I will also do musical workshops in hospitals with sick children. I can also do live streams whose profits will be donated to associations. I accompany two little girls who were sick. One is in remission and the other is recovering, she had a groin transplant.
I know that families follow me, they send me messages.
I am a sponsor of an association called Association de Lilou, it is a little girl who has recovered from cancer and with whom I am very close. It's a really extraordinary friendship that was born between us and me that carries me. This is really what I want to do and what's more, I have quite chronic health problems and it allows me even more to put my problems into perspective. I can spend 10%, 15%, 20% of my year in the hospital, it does not prevent me from understanding their pain and then telling myself that in fact it will be okay. Because I've seen how much worse it can be and basically everything is fine. As long as I have both legs, wake up, breathe and can sing, everything will be fine.
It is a human commitment and finally the medical studies were not there by chance!
Exactly! I don't think anything is there for nothing. It's hard to realize it at the moment T. Me, at the moment T, I had only one desire it was to shoot myself in the skull, saying to myself: Why am I doing this? And in fact over time, we realize that, for example; we separate from someone, it hurts and then three years later we say to ourselves: What did I do well that it ends! In the sense that it was a story that no longer had reason to be and that finally it was a good thing. We only remember the beautiful lessons of the experiences we live. And so the medical lesson, a I know what I'm talking about when I talk about disease. I know the mechanisms of the body. And then it's funny because the Just Human association takes place at the Curie Institute and I studied medicine at Pierre and Marie Curie, it's attached. I tell myself that, in fact, I started working where I wanted to work before I had even finished my studies if I had continued them. So somewhere the circle is still closed just like with Les maux bleus, The Voice and Christophe. There, the circle is closed with medicine and that's why today, I'm really ready to go and defend my titles. Whether it's Les mals bleus or Beirut, which is coming very fast.
Do you have a word for the end?
The last word is that it's never really too late to say to yourself: I can be happy. And the only way to be happy is to move towards yourself and to respect yourself, to respect others. To respect myself is to say to yourself: What I want to do, I want it to matter, I want to give my life importance, because it is important. It doesn't mean giving yourself too much importance. It just means: I want what I do to be useful and this is the best way to be happy. So be helpful, be helpful to yourself, be kind, adorable and beautiful. Long live love (laughs). Thank you Lukas Abdul for this beautiful interview! Find Lukas on instagram @lukasabduloff
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