CONTOUR : GROWING UP ON THE ILLUSION OF TRUTH
KHARI LUCAS’ ARTIST NAME IS CONTOUR. THE SOUTH-CAROLINA BASED ARTIST JUST RELEASED BEST MODERN BLUES ALBUM, ONWARDS!
We met, talked about many things among personal life, telepathy, lies, cinema’s powerful expression or how to listen to your intuition.
Words by Clarisse Prévost
Creative Direction : Gabriel Trautmann
Photos : Alexandre Blondeau
Lights : Darius Babled
Khari, how are you feeling today ?
I’m getting over some jetlag. I arrived yesterday morning and did he thing you’re not supposed to do : go to sleep.
You’re from south Carolina, right ? What was it like to grow up there ?
Yes, in Charleston. There’s things that I appreciate about it now but I didn’t appreciate growing up there. The things that made it boring growing up are the things that I enjoy now : going to the beach, taking long walks, sleeping all day. It’s a culturally weird place because it’s one of the largest ports were enslaved people came into the US through.
As he city tries to preserve a lot of this architecture, it creates a kind of weird, metaphysical time bubble around the place that you can feel. I didn't really have the language to understand that until maybe a few years ago.
“People who know each other very well have developed a shared mindset that starts to transcend speech.”
Do you have some vivid or blurred memories that impacted your music and that you are aware about now ? From a distant seat.
Probably being really close to the ocean. And the religious stuffs. I was raised really christian. Religious iconography, being constantly indoctrinated probably makes its way into my writing. Though, I don’t think it's so incredibly present. Although, I've been actively writing about it a little more recently than I had before.
How music came into your life , first as a listener ?
My mom had a really good music taste. She was listening to a wide range of stuff, like soul, regular black parents stuffs but also to some random experimental music, which i had no taste for when i was growing up. When I was in middle school, I started to choose to listen to music on my own, mostly rap music. But I was also involved in choir and theater from a really young age.
So when did you really start writing and making your own music ?
When I was 17,18, like, 10 years ago. I was mainly producing but I was kind of a songwriter.
Did you have a particular way to create a certain discipline on a regular basis ? How did it come ?
I think it was definitely progressive. I was really obsessed with making things. So I guess i was disciplined in a sense that I was making these things most days for a long time. But I was not looking at it that way, I was just kind of obsessed. It was not until the last 3 or 4 years that I started seeing this more as a discipline. It's also funny because I think that I am less disciplined now than I was at the beginning.
You said you didn’t study for long. You were straight doing full music ?
No. I had regular side jobs. Just to survive.
You DJ too ? What do you like to play ?
Yea. I don’t get to do it very often. But when I do, a lot of house, sometimes disco, some techno here and there. It gets kind of all over the place, pretty much like anything that black people make to dance to.
“adulTdhood is kind of balance between survival and self concept and figuring out how those things relate to each other. And finding them through joy and struggle. ”
I read that to create Onwards!, your new album, you’ve been digging LA Rebellion archives. Tell me more about the process, the first idea till the materialization ?
When I make records, I don't usually start with a clear conception of what I'm doing. I’m just making a lot of stuff and then eventually I start to find connections between the things that I'm making. In 2020, I made a lot of music, staying home, watching a lot of films, and reading. After some months, I noticed a thread. But it’s funny because initially, Onwards wasn't conceived as an album, more into separate EPs.
U write poetry too. Poetry means a lot, for sure, but do you write differently if it’s written poetry than when it’s going to be interpreted with music, for a song ?
It’s different because with music I don't typically write lyrics before I make the music. I am usually writing music in response. When I write something text-based, there’s not necessarily a form in mind, like I'm not thinking about melody, meter, or rhyme. Sometimes, I'll pull from poetry to create lyrics, I take pieces.
What do you like about poetry ?
It’s not a goal or tied to an aspiration like I wanna make a career out of it. It just feels good.
Are there some books that mean a lot to you ? Yes there’s many. Like Tony Morrisson’Song of Solomon. And authors like Amiri Baraka, June Jordan, Harmony Holiday, Fred Moten.
U also read comics and mangas ? Look what I brought. What do you like about him (Taiyou Matsumoto) ?
It’s my favorite. It’s the most interesting visual style of any manga I've ever read. Even in the way panels are laid out, it’s so dynamically visual, it’s not just square square square. Everything is broken up, and the way the panels are tapped in corresponds to the tone of whatever happens in the story. Or even just the drawing style, you could feel the movement happening.
It kind of reflects the subjectivity of how we experience seeing the world. We don’t see the world like, clear drying of things, we see the world in ways where everything is kinda formed by our emotional experiences. And the poetics of the writing is also really evocative, not like “this is what’s happening”.
And they got great outfits.
EVerything’s so cool.
Your music is kind of blues to my ears. You wrote on spotify ‘blues takes many forms’, what are these many forms ?
I meant : beyond being a genre, a sonic way like having specific sound characteristics that you recognize. It’s also like poetic characteristics of the blues, just like its general feeling or experience, a form of documenting your own life experiences, your feelings.
I think it’s present, especially with any black expression that documents any form of melancholia or sadness or just like everyday life is blues, in some ways.
“ films are one of the places where you can find the most compelling emotional expression.”
I saw you’ve been curating lists of movies for platforms. Do soundtracks were something that had an impact on your musical education ?
I always liked movies but I didn’t start engaging as deeply as I am now until a few years ago. I always wanted to have some cinematic feeling in my music. Whether that be through imagery or just conceiving the body of work as a world, a larger story. Films are one of the places where you can find the most compelling emotional writing, emotional expression. I think a lot about how you can create images in somebody’s mind and transport them into a scene.
With music writing, there’s multiple approaches. Some is very much trying to describe a specific thing, talking about one feeling. What I feel interested in is talking about multiple things in one. Building a scene that blurs the lines between different ideas but still creates an overall feeling that is one thing, but that’s also more than one thing at the same time.
And if you have to choose a track that would fit your most amazing mood. When you feel good with yourself, what music is in the background ?
There’s a recording of Nina Simone doing a song called “i want a little sugar in my bowl”. That’s not the version that’s on her blues album, it’s a live version from another album.
“What I feel interested in is talking about multiple things in one. ”
I was just curious about how you experience it the NTS + Carhartt residency in Italy back 2019. How was it ?
It was cool because I was with non musical artists, and everybody was older than me. It was inspiring to be with people that are so far and long with practices, how they work. Some people would be in their studios all day and work, some people would wander around, sit by the pool.
How much do you like to be in social contexts ?
Sometimes. 50/50. Depends on the seasons.
And right now ?
I think I'm leaning towards loner right now. But not so strongly. It’s also because I'm working on another record right now, so I am deep in my thoughts and feelings.
I want to talk to you about telepathy because I know believe in it. I have the image of MSN messengers. You know when you’re 10 years old and you go back from school and you connect and you chat with the people from school.
You have the green, red and orange circles that say if you're connected, busy, or offline. I see it like that. I think it works when two minds are green for each other. If the person is connected and you’re connected too. Heart is also connected, so if you have a conflict with someone, you can feel each other’s color, it could be orange or red. How do you see it ?
That was a really good way of describing it. I feel like there are levels of nonverbal communications that we have. I think obviously it exists very strongly between people that have known each other really well. People who know each other very well have developed a shared mindset that starts to transcend speech, at some point. I also think it can metaphysically happen between two people that do not know each other well. But it's not explainable, it just is.
What’s your conception of adulthood ?
That’s quite a question. Adulthood… I don't know. It’s kind of balance of survival and self concept and figuring out how those things relate to each other. And finding them through joy and struggle.
And how do you find that balance ?
I probably not. But I'm still here, so it can’t be too bad.
“ it’s tempting to say something like “finding stillness” or “quiet reflecting”. you can do that in excess too.
Sometimes, you might opt for the reflecting or quietness because you wanna run from the other side of the thing.”
In your lyrics, you often question the words, language, the one in our mind that we then take outside when we talk, say something out loud. I was wondering, do you feel like sometimes you’re lying to yourself ?
Oh yes. Absolutely. All the time.
You consciously know when you are doing that ?
No. I wish. I mean, sometimes, everyone once in a while consciously knows. But usually it's revealed later and you’re like “oh”.
Don’t you think there’s something inside us that knows when we are choosing an illusion ?
Absolutely. That’s part of the thing. That’s like intuition, right ? Strength and inner relationship to your intuition so you can recognize it from time to time. But I feel like it’s a lifelong process.
Do you have a trick to know when you’re not being honest with yourself ? Hide yourself some truth ?
I think when I'm very embodied in myself I recognize when I'm not being honest.
“If I wake up and I am like ‘oh i really want to start painting’ and I go buy painting supplies and start painting, I would start calling myself a painter.”
What are the things you do to feel embodied in yourself ? In our daily lives, there’s a lot of things that disrupt that.
It’s a balance. It’s tempting to say something like “finding stillness” or “quiet reflecting” , but you can do that in excess too. Sometimes, you might opt for the reflecting or quietness because you wanna run from the other side of the thing.
I feel like being embodied is finding a way to be deeply connected to what your whole person is calling you to do in the moment and being very aware and in tune with that. Having enough space for that voice to be clear and what it’s saying. But it’s not always discernible. I guess it’s not like an inner voice that is like your thoughts. It’s something else.
Do you point it out sometimes, like, “this is Intuition talking” ? Cause sometimes it can be Fear talking. How do you make the difference : “is this fear ? That could be intuition” ? It feels close but different.
I feel like it’s a faith thing. I think you just have to believe in one of the others, and hope that the one that you feel is the right one.. Cause you can’t really logically decide.
You can if you evaluate, make a calculation and be like “that could be fear, because…
Sometimes. When it’s obvious, yes; but when it’s not…
Do you believe in the “fake it til you make it” ?
Yes, in the sense that that approach is a tool that can be used very effectively by certain people in certain circumstances. And like any tool, sometimes it works, sometimes it does not.
Have you already used this tool ?
I think so. At least if we’re talking about pursuing passion and creativity. I think you’re whatever you say you are when it comes to being an icon, an artist. You can be saying anything as long as you’re doing the thing. But i don’t really think it matters if you’re doing the thing incredibly well or not. You don’t have to get caught up in scale, aptitude, to call yourself one. But I really feel like calling yourself something is a really self-motivating thing to continue to do this thing.
If I wake up and I am like “i really want to start painting” and I go buy painting supplies and start painting, I would start calling myself a painter. I would probably not be making good paintings for some time, but I would still see myself as a painter. I would try to. And eventually, through that kind of self reassurance or definition, I will get better ideas and be a more talented painter.
Yeah, and people would believe in you too. I think we have to give ourselves legitimacy first, not wait for others to do it. Khari, why this name, contour ? I think it means the same thing in French as in english.
When I came up with it, it was like, there’s a kind of map that’s called the contour map, it was used to serve for geographic, landscapes, to show elevation. And I figured it was very similar to what soundwaves look like.
Imagine… You have these moments when things are tough, then the light comes. In the transition process, you end rebirthing. What music would embody that kind of renaissance when you just went over a down part and you’re going back up. What music you listen to help you embody this rebirth feeling ?
Definitely rap music. Or like funk. I really like the new Veeze album, he’s a rapper from Detroit. It’s good.
Do you have something to share ?
Yeah. Really what’s on my mind and spirit right now is the genocide happening in Palestine, which many of us are aware of and i’m afraid many of us are not aware of. Or, are still susceptible to believing propaganda instead of believing to be in propaganda. And it feels important to me to use my voice in solidarity with the people in Palestine too. To bring light to their survival struggles and encourage everybody to do the same, and to not look away from it, as tempting as it may be.