CHAPTER 11:
SHOT BY BOTH SIDES
‘The nail that sticks up is the one that gets hit by the hammer.’
Japanese proverb
The second year of the shiny new millennium was a brilliant and successful one for Manu. He found time to complete his follow-up to Clandestino – Próxima Estación: Esperanza – and attracted a huge following on tour, mostly in Europe this time. His band consolidated their fearsome live reputation, as evidenced on a triumphant live CD, which in the old vinyl days would have been a generous double album, with its twenty-nine tracks.
Yet 2001 was also the year when Manu’s political opponents – both on the right and left – cranked their vilification into overdrive. Several of his concerts were cancelled in controversial circumstances by authorities who saw him as an anarchist ‘leader’. Meantime, as the world’s most famous ‘millionaire backpacker’, Manu became a target for purists in the alternative movement. As the Japanese proverb goes, ‘The nail that sticks up is the one that gets hit by the hammer.’
The live album was recorded by Virgin in July at La Grande Halle de La Villette in Paris. The recordings were released in 2002 as a CD called Radio Bemba Sound System and a DVD called Babylonia En Guagua, a reference to the Bob Marley live album Babylon By Bus. Both showed that Manu had created a band with a power approaching, even surpassing, that of Mano Negra, except that this time Manu was securely in the driving seat, with his hands on the controls. A backstage documentary entitled Babylon’s Fever, which was released with the live DVD, shows a rather introverted Manu, the quiet boss with his mind on the taxing job of keeping his crew happy and productive, sitting at the back of the bus, occasionally jotting down new song ideas while the others get up the usual rock’n’roll hi-jinks; scoring dope, jamming merrily and chatting up the chicas.
The musical dynamics were certainly impressive, with Manu’s increasingly assured tenor voice given a counterpoint – and an alternative focus onstage – in the rapper and singer Bidji, and a rich texture created by the three piece brass section, B-Roy’s accordion, David and Gerard on drums and percussion.
Manu could be quietly confident that the studio album, Próxima Estación: Esperanza, would do well. For the first time since the early days of Mano Negra, all the ducks were lined up for a professionally marketed, properly backed release, with priority support from Virgin and a hot new band to tour behind it. Arriving in the wake of Clandestino’s success, this new disc was likely to be a million-seller. In the end it sold 3.5 million copies at home and abroad. Manu saw it as ‘the little sister’ of Clandestino – more female in character, while Clandestino was more male.
Several of Próxima Estación’s backing tracks were, to the confusion of some critics, but in typical Manu fashion, recycled. Both “Homens” and “Mr Bobby” use more or less the same track as “Bongo Bong” on Clandestino. According to Manu, “Homens” was ‘simply a practical solution’. He had been trying to write a piece of music for his old girlfriend Valeria in Rio, but she didn’t like it, so Manu suggested using the backing track for “Bongo Bong”, which he happened to have on his computer. On top of it, Valeria rapped gently in Brazilian Portuguese that men, whether black, mulatto, creole or white, whether gordo (fat), safado (horny), careca (bald) can make a woman happy, so long as they show respect, preferably have money and are bom de cama (good in bed). Manu might have been nicknamed ‘The Jesuit’ by the other members of Mano Negra, but you couldn’t call the content of his albums puritanical.
“Mr Bobby” was a tribute to Bob Marley, Manu’s ‘professor of simplicity’ and a key figure in his life, a saint of the global underclass, whose music travelled everywhere. Bob Marley’s lyrics are graffitied all over the walls of cities in Africa, the Caribbean and most other points of the globe. Manu’s provokes the same coverage in Spain and Latin America. The language Manu uses in this song and elsewhere is not exactly that of a native-born English speaker: Tonight I watch through my window / And I can’t see no lights / Tonight I watch through my window / And I can’t see no rights. Like many of Manu’s songs, “Mr Bobby” is double-edged, optimistic and yet also despairing, full of malegría.
The most immediately catchy song was “Me Gustas Tú” (I Like You), a simple, almost childish ditty that lists some of the things that Manu likes, ranging from the gifts of nature (the sea, the light, the wind) to his favourite haunts of La Coruña (the town in Galicia where his father comes from) and Malasaña (his adopted barrio in Madrid), to guitars, reggae and marijuana. The song is a slacker generation’s version of the Sound of Music classic “My Favourite Things”.
The song’s refrain of ‘que horas son, mi corazón’ – which translates as ‘what time is it my (sweet)heart?’ or, with more resonance, ‘what times are these my (sweet)heart?’ – pops up again both on the song “La Primavera” (The Spring) and on Próxima Estación’s final track, “Infinita Tristeza” (Endless Sadness). Once again the idea is simple. Manu asks what time it is in different parts of the world – Mozambique, England, Japan, Washington. The effect is to create an instant web of connections across the world and the feeling that we’re all in this together, economically, politically, ecologically and musically.
The multiple global references, musical styles and languages that interweave throughout the album provoke a feeling similar to that experienced by frequent travellers at the moment when they wake up, in a state of semi-consciousness, forgetting where they are. The opening line of “La Primavera” claims that we have been deceived by the spring. ‘Politicians are always promising a bright new future,’ explains Manu, ‘a new spring, which, of course, never comes.’
In a profile some years later, the New Yorker, having quoted Manu as saying that he writes songs ‘as therapy, to address the rage I feel about this world,’ added that ‘on the whole he is too smart to simply telegraph his feelings and theories’. In fact, the most overtly political song on Próxima Estación is “Denia”, which is sung in Mahgrebi (North African) Arabic. Most listeners won’t have a clue what the song is about: ‘My heart aches to watch you / Poor Algeria / Life through your eyes / Life as lie / Life swarming with police / Life soaked with mothers’ tears’.
Whilst the album glows with a generalised sympathy for the downtrodden in Mozambique or Algeria and for the state of emergency in the world, its atmosphere is much more upbeat than that of Clandestino. The addition of brass and bleeps and bleats adds to the crazed cheerfulness. Tracks like “Papito” and “La Chinita” are jolly to the point of mania. “Promiscuity” (‘Too much, too much promiscuity / Can drop to insanity’) is another quasi-burlesque number about the emotional dangers of sleeping around, that could have come straight out of the music hall. Then there’s the jaunty Franglais of “Le Rendez-Vous”, in which Manu takes a date to a French movie.
Overall, Próxima Estación was less obviously political than his more engaged fans might have expected. This was a conscious move for Manu. ‘I’m aware that rebellion has been co-opted as a marketing device,’ he said at the time of the album’s release, citing the pictures of Che Guevara that were use to advertise Absolut Vodka. ‘But maybe because I’m nearly forty, just complaining about what’s wrong with the world isn’t enough.’
“Mi Vida”, which means ‘my life’ but which can also be a term of love and endearment, is the saddest and most beautiful song on the album. It features some evocative and surreal poetic imagery: ‘mi vida lucerito sin vela / mi sangre de la herida / no me hagas sufrir mas / mi vida bala perdida / por la gran via / charquito de arrabal / no quiero que te vayas / no quiero que te alejes’ (my life bright star without a candle / my blood from the wound / don’t make me suffer more / my life a stray bullet /along the Gran Via / a puddle in the slums / I don’t want you to go / I don’t want you to leave.)
Manu loves those rare moments when a song arrives almost fully formed. The ones that just appear like that are always the best. “Mi Vida” came to him one night and was recorded the next day.
With the huge success of Clandestino, Manu was in a position to make serious demands of the record company when it came to marketing Próxima Estación. Instead of plastering the Paris Metro with posters in the traditional way, Virgin agreed to rent an entire station in Manu’s favourite quarter of Ménilmontant and stage a kind of art event there, as well as an album launch at his friend Johnny McLeod’s Babel Bar. Manu vetoed the idea of doing any TV advertising.
Outside Paris, marketing reverted to more textbook hard-sell methods. A reporter from the Wall Street Journal was amused to see the effect of this strategy in Nîmes. ‘There are Manu Chao billboards on the roads. A life-size Manu Chao “tower” at the entrance to the FNAC department store. And at electronic dealers, TV sets can be seen broadcasting Manu Chao. Thanks to a global corporate giant, the face of one of the best-known anti-globalisation protestors hangs over this French town.’ Concert-goers even got the words ‘Manu Chao’ stamped on their wrists. But the reporter also added that ‘Mr Chao is the first to recognise the contradiction between his lucre and his politics. Working for a multinational corporation, he says, disqualifies him from being a symbol of anti-globalisation.’ He quotes Manu saying that: ‘The dictatorship of the world economy will mean, if it continues, collective suicide. I’m just trying to help – although it’s true I do have a lot more means to do so than other people.’
Manu was, in fact, set to earn several million euros from Próxima Estación. Its success also put the wind back in Clandestino’s sails and kicked it back up the charts. ‘Money’, concluded Manu, ‘is a problem that has been solved.’ But that in itself brought other, albeit lesser, problems in its wake.
The album reviews were generally positive, which was a boon, although it must be said that Próxima Estación had such momentum behind it that it was in effect critic-proof. Le Monde’s review of the album was entitled ‘Les collages euphorique de Manu Chao’ and went on to describe the project as mad, glorious and miraculous.
The few negative grumblings focused on the fact that the album wasn’t as innovative as Clandestino, and that, in fact, it was just more of the same. ‘He’s made the same album,’ observed a puzzled Charlie Gillett when chairing the BBC’s annual World Music Awards. Which was almost true, but missed the point, for the soundscapes and emotional atmosphere of Próxima Estación were different and more positive: there was less of the malegría, more of the fun. In retrospect, it feels like one of Manu’s most fully realised and cohesive albums – and a career milestone.
Próxima Estación was propelled up the charts by “Me Gustas Tú”, which became a top 10 single in France and several other European countries. Manu was particularly pleased that buskers throughout the continent adopted the song, often modifying the words to their own desires. At a time when every computer buff was banging on about the future being interactivity, this was the kind of interactivity that he could appreciate and enjoy.
There was also some disappointment from Manu’s more radical fans that the album wasn’t more directly political. In Peru, a critic for the newspaper La República regretted that Manu had not ‘sparked a Molotov to set fire to the rock stage once and for all, to light the fuse of rebellion against the old order’. But that wasn’t a role Manu felt was for him. Indeed, in 2001 he avoided an opportunity, consciously, to take overt leadership of the anti-capitalist movement and become something of an ‘alternative world leader’.
GENOA 44.4°N 8.9°E
A month after the release of Próxima Estación, from 18 to 21 July 2001, the G8 summit of world leaders took place in Genoa. It was the cue for massive anti-globalisation protests. Three weeks before the summit was due to begin, Manu and his band Radio Bemba played at a festival in the city. Half the price of each ticket sold went to the Genoa Social Forum, which organised the anti G8 demos and to the building of a Clandestino bar in the city, which gave water, apples and other basics to the demonstrators free of charge.
Then the band played a massive free show at the Duomo in Milan, ‘in the heart of Berlusconi country’, as Manu put it. And the night before the protest they played another rousing show, the proceeds of which went into a fund to pay for the legal fees of any arrested protestors.
A few cynics applauded this piece of radical-chic marketing for Manu’s album. The authorities thought differently. A few weeks before Genoa, an Italian police squad had descended on Virgin’s office in Milan, seeking evidence to back their assertion that, in their own words, ‘Mr Chao’s music encourages the drug trade’, and when the band played the Treviso Festival, the army turned up and 30,000 people were forced to pass through the entry gates one by one, delaying the concert for three hours. Paulo Varesi, head of the Rinnovamento Sindicale, an Italian police officers’ union, declared that ‘Mano Chao is sending out a deviant message, which can be interpreted as an appeal to engage in warfare.’
On the eve of the summit, the Italian Minister of the Interior declared on TV that he wanted to negotiate the security of Genoa with Manu. Manu rebuffed this idea. Meanwhile, over 200,000 anti-capitalists – socialists, communists, anarchists, greens and others – descended on Genoa. Rejecting the legitimate right of the eight world leaders to decide the trajectory of the planet’s economy, they saw Genoa as an opportunity to highlight the evils of globalisation, hopefully in a festive, non-violent spirit. The authorities, and, most vocally, the Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, argued that attempting to blockade the meeting was an anti-democratic and violent act in itself.
The G8 meeting was held inside a ‘Red Zone’ in the centre of Genoa that was declared off-limits for non-residents and surrounded by a fearsome barricade, which cut the protestors off from the summit delegates. Fears of a ‘terrorist attack’ led to a militarised atmosphere, with anti-aircraft missiles and helicopters hovering above. Only one activist, Valerie Vie, a secretary of ATTAC, managed to get through the barrier, but she was immediately arrested. (ATTAC is a French-based anti-globalisation pressure group and Manu was one of its founding members. Originally a single-issue movement that demanded the introduction of the so-called Tobin tax on currency speculation, ATTAC now devotes itself to a wide range of issues related to globalisation.)
Manu was in the thick of the action. In a sequence that is included in the Babylonia En Guagua DVD, he declares: ‘There are a thousand different ideas for the future: I want to respect them all. The important thing is to stay united and say no to the future that is being proposed.’ He says this with passion and then adds, waving to the sky, ‘and say no to the fucking helicopters!’ The video shows Manu with trumpeter Roy Paci playing joyously amongst a good-humoured bunch of protestors as they follow the march. It continues with Manu condemning the ‘dictatorship of money’ and pointing to the barricade, saying, ‘That wall could fall in six months. The system seems really solid but actually it’s fragile, because money is virtual and exists in computers. Another crash in Singapore or Wall Street and’, he mimes dominoes falling, ‘everything collapses’. He was ahead of his time.
This was an unusually relaxed moment of the demonstrations, which rapidly turned ugly as the police raided social centres, media hubs and union buildings, not just in Genoa but across Italy, arresting three hundred demonstrators. An English journalist, Mark Covell, described how an armoured police van broke through the gates at the Diaz Pertini school building in Genoa, where he was staying with a group of protestors. They cr
acked his head with a baton, knocking out sixteen teeth before he passed out. Almost all the demonstrators were beaten. Blood was everywhere. ‘It was like a Mexican butcher’s shop,’ Covell said. At least four hundred protestors and a hundred security forces were injured in the clashes.
Manu on the march with Gambeat (left), during the anti-G8 demonstrations in Genoa, 2001.
On 20 July, a 23-year-old activist called Carlo Giuliani was shot dead during street battles with the police. ‘Everyone is stunned by the violence,’ Manu posted on his website. ‘It makes you want to become violent, the violent way we were treated.’ However, he felt that the over-the-top brutality of the police was designed to provoke a like-for-like response from the protestors and cautioned against being manipulated and allowing the authorities to portray the protestors as violent terrorists.
Perhaps the last word on Genoa should go Haidi, the mother of Carlo Giuliani, the dead protestor: ‘What is at stake is the equilibrium of the planet, along with all the people who inhabit it, its animals, plants, the sea, the land, the air we breathe, the art and culture built up over millions of years, the billions of people who have patiently and tirelessly created it. We can’t just abandon everything to the drabness of indifference, the arrogance of a few men, or the stupidity of blind greed.’
Manu returned to Genoa a few days later and went to Piazza Alimonda, where Carlo Giuliani had lost his life. ‘I went on foot and felt waves of emotion. I met my dad there who said a beautiful sentence: ‘’We cannot force them to tell the truth about the G8, but we can force them to lie more shamelessly.’’
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