by Charlotte Vanbever
In “The Voice Belgium”, she is nicknamed the “Mama”. For his experience, for his comforting side and for his voice, lulled by soul and gospel from the South of the United States. Landed in Belgium 40 years ago, with her courage as her only wealth, BJ knows what “it’s like to lug around pans: to stop hearing them, you have to shout louder, sing louder and laugh louder she smiles.
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Obviously. Because to smile, like to be honest, that’s what his grandmother taught him, on the other side of the Atlantic. And it is with this honesty, with her “tchatche” as she puts it, that the rock’n’roll artist speaks to us about this country which saw her born, of this puritanism which she regrets and which made her evil, and of his host country, where it is good to cook endives while tasting a good beer (we caricature a little)…
BJ, you are often presented as the most Belgian of Americans. Do you go back there often, to the United States, to Alabama?
I try to go there twice a year, for a month. I had a festival there but, post-covid, we won’t be able to do it in May this year. It may be for the fall. It doesn’t matter, I’ll sing anyway. When I get home, I sing…
What’s most American about you? And don’t tell me your accent!
(laughs) That’s the first thing I was going to say! I think I have the chat. It’s a way of hiding a form of shyness. We avoid questions by giving the information we want. It’s a shield. It’s a joy of living that hides something darker. I have my demons like everyone else, a difficult past like many. With this shield, I try to radiate, to give some positivity because I know what it’s like to lug around pans. To stop hearing them, you have to shout louder, sing louder and laugh louder.
Your shield, did you already have it when you arrived here, in Belgium, in 1981?
I believe I have the survival chromosomes. There are people who have experienced difficulties like me who have foundered, they have not had the chance to have this ability to live with it and to build something from the stones that have been thrown at them. Me, I was lucky to have the positive side of my paternal grandmother. She was very strong, she had been through very difficult things and she taught me what unconditional love was. She was poor but she always found a way to earn money to pay for electricity, to make us happy. We were five children, it was not easy. She was my real mom.
There is still a big development in Alabama: I lost custody of my two-year-old daughter because I was with a woman. Today, my daughter lives with a woman and her two children
Have you ever imagined doing anything other than singing?
Yes, of course, but singing! (laughs) I wanted to be the singing doctor, the singing veterinarian,… Like in a Disney, you open the door, the music comes on and you sing while working. And now it is, I sing while working!
Where is your house today? Here or in Alabama?
The two. My roots are deep in the southern United States, but the rest, the branches, the leaves are fine here. I have lived longer in Europe than in the United States. I still have the same accent, I still make the same mistakes in French. But I can’t live without one or the other. I have my husband here, I have grandchildren here and grandchildren there. I am someone perfectly assimilated between the two. I love my roots in the South even if it’s complicated…
Photo credit: Xavier Janssens
Has the United States, and especially the South, changed a lot since you left 40 years ago? Is Puritanism not always present there?
Even if religion remains much too invasive, too important in the decisions, the laws that pass, I know that, at the time, I lost custody of my two-year-old daughter because I was with a woman. And, today, my daughter lives with a woman, and her two children, and we don’t bother her. So for me, that’s a huge evolution, especially in Alabama. Despite the fact that we can fight, have anti-gay demonstrations, that assholes in Florida don’t want us to use the word “gay” at school anymore for fear of influencing the kids, all of these are dinosaurs that are in tar. It’s ashes! This mentality is going to die because you can’t change a human being just by labeling them. Human beings will always find a way to free themselves, the way to freedom, even if it takes 100 years.
The image that people have of the United States is not often that one, that of the “southern” states, if you forgive me the expression…
We can still say it, they are idiots over there! For 80%, they are Trumpists. The United States is not Los Angeles or New York, it’s much more complex than that. It is as if we wanted to define Europe by citing only Wallonia, whereas it is very different from Germany, France,… The South of the United States is very different from the rest, but it there is a real tendency today to change the face, to reclaim history for Americans of African heritage. You have to find the middle ground.
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