Who are they? Where are they? And more particularly what are they? If you really wonder, listen to Chinese Man “The Groove Sessions vol.2″ and their exclusive playlist for Fairtilizer and read the interview below:

What’s your new release about?
High Ku : The Groove Sessions Vol.2 is the second compilation of the Chinese Man Record’s label. This new CD contains some solo experiments by Sly (one of the 3 member of Chinese Man – He Said, 7th Street, Elysean Fields- ), a detour in the sticky underground of the Bay Area featuring some of the best “Fresh Coast” MCs (Post trauma feat. Cyph4, Batteries not Included feat. Plex and Lush One, Our Time feat Franco) and brand new productions of the Chinese Man (Jumpin’ in Havan, Ordinary Man, Calling Bombay…). In this new opus, we play with many influences, Hip Hop, Folk, Indian Music samples… We also have decided to release exclusive and unreleased remixes featuring Femi Kuti and the famous Baile Funk producer DJ Sandrinho.

Are you on other projects ?
High Ku : Yes, we are currently hitting the road with a new live show where machines, video, 3D and turntables intersect to give a new life to our productions. We worked on a complete re-orchestration of our productions and created a space for live improvisation where we consider each turntable, sampler or keyboard as real instruments ! We tour mostly in France but also in Asia (Korea, Thailand, Indonesia) and european countries (Belgium, Switzerland, UK…). It’s a real pleasure to offer our audience an enthusiastic live show and we hope we’ll be able to travel more and more to spread our music and our “zen spirit”.

What do you listen to these days?
Sly : Refused, The Mars Volta, Alela Diane, General Elektriks, Buraka Sum Sistema, Ratatat and 90’s US Hip Hop

Influences and family?
Sly : First Ninja Tune and Mo’ Wax releases, DJ Shadow, Quannum, DJ Krush, Portishead, 90’s Us Hip Hop producers (DJ Premier, Large Professor, Rockwilder, Swiss Beats…) and so much more for the influences… Femi kuti, DDC and Tha Trikaz (french beatmakers), General Elektriks and The Chinese Man records crew for the (musical) family…

How do you see the French hiphop scene?
Sly : The mainstream French scene is very rich (there’s a LOT of artists) but… it sucks ! (it’s just my opinion of course)
For me, it’s just a pathetic copy of US commercial rap (50 Cent, Flo Rida, T.I and stuff like that)… There’s a lack of creativity, no freshness, everybody get the same sound, the same flow, the same stupid lyrics… It’s just booooooooring… Of course there’s a lot of interresting bands in the underground/alternative scene… I think Hip Hop is so much better when it takes distance with the “clichés” of rap music and takes artistic risks… But I’m optimist and I’m pretty sure that the audience gonna get bored of all this crap and will search more originality and creativity someday !

You’re releasing an album in a difficult moment for the music industry: how do you see the future for it?
Zé Mateo : The music industry had great years… mostly for majors ! Today it seems harder for new artists to exist but there is a new place for indies. We try to make the music we like without waiting for any results or without huge marketing efforts. A human size adventure seems more appropriate in these days and that’s the way we try to do it with our indie record label (Chinese Man Records).

And the future of Chinese Man?
Zé Mateo : We will follow our path and we are planning to release our first “real” album in 2010/2011. But we never know, we are just disciples and only the Chinese Man will decide.

As an artist, what services do you expect from internet?
Zé Mateo : Internet is an additional diffusion and sharing media for us. Like most of recent indie labels and bands, Internet really helped us to obtain a wider visibility at the begining. Now, we see Internet as a promotion tool and we try to create a strong link with the audience who likes us and likes what we are doing. It’s also the perfect medium to share about artists, videos, tracks we like… and create a wide community of Chinese Man’s disciples.

We are in a world with a lot of different models when it comes to music (free streaming, digital stores, mobile, collector edition vinyls etc.): what kind of service should be brought to the table? Digital or physical, is there a place for both?
Zé Mateo : There is definitely a place for digital and physical. Both CD releases went really well on digital. But the label Chinese Man Records is above all a vinyl label. Chinese Man Records has been created to release vinyls… cd and digital releases came when the public asked for it.
High Ku : Digital, and physical audience are not the same. For us, it remains really important to provide vinyls for DJs and the audience who still prefer this special sound.

Typical tasty Chinese Man joke to end?
- “Do you like fishsticks ?”
- “Yes, I do !”
- “So you’re a gayfish”

Official video: 7th Street

Visit Believe Digital Fairtilizer profile
Visit Chinese Man Myspace
Visit Chinese Man website

Exclusive Chinese Man playlist (tracklisting) :

- GENERAL ELEKTRIKS “Take Back The Instant”
- LILLY WOOD AND THE PRICK “L.E.S artistes (Santogold cover)”
- KLAXONS “No Diggity (Blackstreet cover)”
- SOUTH PARK ” Gay Fish”
- RATATAT “Notorious B.I.G – Party and Bullshit REMIX”
- PRGz “Hood Celebrity (Spruce Lee mix)”
- SHARON JONES “100 Days, 100 Nights”
- SEU JORGE “América do Norte”
- CUT CHEMIST “The Garden”
- GENERAL ELEKTRIKS “Little lady”