The love child of South African lead singer Cata Pirata and Dutch musician Jori Collignon, this sextet of world music molests hip hop, cumbia and the avant garde for music that moves your lower half – think M.I.A. making it with Manu Chao at Carnivàle with lots of drums, drums, drums. That’s Beijing got a chance to talk with Jori before Skip & Die’s riot in Beijing.
What is the story behind your name?
We are called SKIP&DIE because our character traits, views on life and the world around us are so full of paradoxes and cosmic dualities. It is based on the idea of the YIN and the YANG. ‘SKIP’ and ‘DIE’ are not merely opposites, they exist together and compliment one another. The name also refers to a joke with our friends: if you skip this song, you die!
Cata sings in lots of languages - so how many can you all speak? Speak any Chinese?
All summed up together we speak around seven languages. Cata Pirata studied Mandarin for a year at university, so maybe one day we will write a song in Chinese!
What is your biggest concern about coming here and what is something you really wanna try to do? (saying “the Great Wall” or “The Forbidden City” doesn’t count)
For me the most interesting thing for this trip is to create a connection with the Chinese people through our music. People don’t have to understand where we come from or where the music comes from, but I hope they will understand the energy and party with us. Cata’s father used to teach Tai-Chi Chuan in South Africa and still wakes up before dawn to do it, so she grew up learning about the strength of the Chi.
You incorporate a variety of beats in your music. Are there different beats that get crowds crazier in different places? What’s hot where?
It feels we have a great connection with the southern countries of Europe. France is amazing, Spain is great and we fell in love with Portugal. It seems people there are more used to the tropical beats and the mixing of our musical genres. The more Northern-European crowds enjoy the show, but they have the tendency to be a bit more stand-offish, admire and watch; whereas the warm blooded people easily party and dance!
You can’t help but notice Riots in the Jungle is a very political album. If you could write a song about the situation in Syria, what would it sound like and what would it say?
It’s not easy -if not impossible- to make sense of situations like this by just following the media. If we were to write a song about the situation in Syria, it might be a very emotional, instrumental song; one instrument, a lonely Persian setar, or a flute, played outside in a refugee camp.
Or perhaps, in another version of the song, UN-inspectors find out Mr Assad is in fact gay and as a consequence to this discovery Mr Putin immediately drops his protection. The regime falls without Mr Obama sending his bombs and Omar Souleyman becomes the new Syrian president after earnest and peaceful democratic elections. The people will celebrate and dance in the streets for 1001 days and nights.
If you had a chance to buy a pet monkey while on tour, how much would you be willing to pay and what would his name be?
We already do HAVE a pet monkey on tour! We call it Cata. We pay it peanuts.
//RMB120 (RMB100 pre-sale), 9pm. Yugong Yishan, 3-2 Zhang Zizhong Lu, Dongcheng District 愚公移山东城区张自忠路3-2号(6404 2711, http://www.yugongyishan.com)
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