Are the songs a literal translation of the Creole original?
I’d say the songs were ‘adapted’ rather than translated. Etienne grew up impregnated with Hispanic musical culture – he traces his origins back to Catalonia, in Spain. So what happened was we explained the general theme of each of the songs, then left him free to write his own lyrics, using our music as a basis of inspiration. Of course, it goes without saying that Etienne was careful not to make the new songs too exotic-sounding! The five members of Kassav – that’s Jacob Desvarieux, Patrick St Eloi, Jean-Philippe Marthely, Jean-Claude Naimro and yourself – have always pursued your own solo careers in tandem with your work with Kassav … Yes, we’ve all pursued our own solo careers right from the start, right from ’82, in fact, when Kassav moulded itself into its definitive form. We’ve all gone off and recorded our own solo albums every now and then, while continuing to work with the group. It’s another way of imposing our style, I guess – getting as many different variations of zouk as
