young people rapping on texts by elders

At the invitation of the Maison de culture de Rivière-des-Prairies, the group Berceurs du temps calls on the public of the borough of Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles to participate in its Mamie Remix project, where high school kids rap on texts composed by old people.

In interview with Subwayco-artistic director of Berceurs du temps and designer of Mamie Remix, Ilya Krouglikov, tells the story and successes of this original project founded in 2021.

“Only three schools and three seniors’ residences across Montreal participated last year. We were lucky to get some positive publicity, like with The Press. At the beginning of this year, we went to six schools and six residences, in addition to receiving support from new partners, which allowed us to add choreography to our music videos,” says Mr. Krouglikov.

RDP Special Edition

The positive promotion of the project aroused the interest of the Maison de la culture de Rivière-des-Prairies, which contacted Ilya Krouglikov to launch a specific edition in this borough.

“The current edition is ad hoc, because it’s more of an invitation to participate. We are not approaching schools and seniors’ homes this time, we are asking them to participate while having identified the Jean-Grou school and the Lionel-Bourdon residence in Rivière-des-Prairies, » said Mr. Krouglikov.

For the co-artistic director, this edition specific to Rivière-des-Prairies serves a greater purpose than the production of a music video and a musical creation.

We targeted the Jean-Grou school and the Lionel-Bourdon seniors’ residence given their geographic proximity. The ultimate goal is to create intergenerational links in the same neighborhood and to positively feed the social fabric. There is a vision that goes beyond making a music video: we want these two age groups in Rivière-des-Prairies to meet and for there to be a solidarity that emerges in a context of isolation linked to the pandemic.

Ilya Krouglikov, co-artistic director of Berceurs du temps and designer of Mamie Remix

True to this vision, the co-artistic director specifies that the project is supported by several foundations for the well-being of seniors and that it receives the support of Intergenerations Quebec.

A long creative process

The call for applications having ended on October 23, the edition of Mamie Remix in Rivière-des-Prairies can move on to the next stage, that of writing the texts.

Ilya Krouglikov maintains that the creative process is important for young people and for elders, so that a bond of trust and affinities are created between them.

“The process spans two months, with two hours of workshops per week. During these workshops, the young people receive the texts of songs composed or selected by the elders and modify them as they wish by taking up sentences, words or creating new lyrics from the different themes, hence the name Mamie Remix. , he points out.

Mr. Krouglikov also indicates that the elders will come three times to visit the young people during the workshops to get to know them and to discover the creative process based on the texts they have provided.

Then, young people will go to Planet Studios – a major studio that has produced artists such as Rihanna and Justin Bieber – to record their musical creations in the company of sound experts. They will then see these productions be converted into a music video which will be released at the end of the process, next December.