A first Olympia is always a symbol. This Sunday, it is the rapper Tiakola who will take to the Parisian stage for the first time, trodden on by so many stars, before a full house. At 23, the young artist already has an eight-year career and can count on a loyal audience, solid notoriety… and expert artistic direction.
Because Tiakola, whose first solo album melo Just crowned double platinum, he is Dawala’s newest colt. A name that needs no introduction in the world of French rap, as this 48-year-old Franco-Malian is behind one of the biggest hits of the last two decades: it was he who discovered and launched Sexion d’Assaut, the flagship group from the 2010s, on his label Wati B.
“This label is a training center, like Clairefontaine”, sums up the producer for BFMTV.com.
“We will look for young people from neighborhoods that are not at the highest level, we will give them work methods and we will train them for years.” With Sexion d’Assaut, Wati B, a very young structure at the time, worked “eight years before launching a big project”. Now separated, the band members left the label; Gims and Black M, two of them, are today among the biggest names in French urban music.
passion and ingenuity
Dawala’s propensity for using football jargon doesn’t come out of nowhere. Before discovering his passion for music, it was soccer that made him dream. Born Badiri Diakité in 1974 in Paris, he left the following year for Mali, where he spent his entire childhood, only to return to the French capital at the age of 11.
In the late 1990s, he worked as a special education teacher and accompanied futsal classes in the 19th arrondissement, near Porte de Pantin. With the youth, he records songs. Using his relationships, he summons several big names in rap to put together a mixtape, PSG: Pure His Ghetto:
“Malians are big families,” he jokes. “I have cousins in Evry, Vitry, Sarcelles, where most of the great rappers come from.”
Oxmo Puccino, Rohff, 113 or even Kery James answered the call and Dawala’s career was launched. In the years that followed, he created Wati B (short for “all the time” in Bambara), championed his first artists, and then met the members of Sexion d’Assaut.
In search of the “Number 10” of rap
The parallelism between the trajectory of the singers of My adress and Tiakola’s is striking: like them, he was first in a group, 4Keus, that the rapper signed with the label. The band released a handful of mixtapes and albums between 2017 and 2020, before venturing solo.
If Dawala believes that this time in the group was necessary to hone his talent, his potential “was directly apparent.” Because in music, it’s like in the field:
“There are attackers, full-backs, and number 10s, like Zidane,” he describes, spinning the metaphor.
“Un numéro 10, c’est quelqu’un qui fait des refrains, qui distribue. Gims, Dadju (other star of the R&B sortie de la même crèmerie, NDLR), Tiakola… ce sont des gens qui ont un coffer musical, a gift.”
controversial figure
If you continue to praise the talents of your former protégés, your relationship has been considerably renewed in recent years. In 2019, while the reform of the Sexion d’Assaut was stalling, Gims gave an interview to konbini in which he accused Dawala of blocking his comeback: “Fans who would like the group to come back should message Dawala. He is the only one who is against this project because he doesn’t find his financial interest in it.” Black M had gone further and the hashtag #LibèreLaSexionDassault was launched.
“At no time did I block a project that stood out to me and my structure,” he sweeps today without going into details. “With the work we’ve been doing for more than ten years, blocking artists would be incomprehensible and unprofessional.”
Finally, the group found itself fit for a tour last spring. but the album return of kings, who was going to accompany him, never came out: “They went back to the studio, recorded the songs and we realized that the magic was no longer working,” explains Dawala. “And if the artists don’t validate the songs, I can’t release them.”
“When you are in a family, and especially when there is success, there are often problems,” he concludes.
multi-entrepreneur
A success that Wati B savors again thanks to Tiakola. Because for ten years this label, 30% owned by Sony Music, has been developing less conventional artists. Perhaps the symptom of a music industry in which everything has accelerated in the last fifteen years:
“Consumption has changed a lot, we listen to music to listen to a musical environment. Sexion d’Assaut, millions of records were sold. Artists who make a million today, there are no more.”
However, your company continues to develop and work on its multifunctional activities. If the Parisian streetwear clothing store has closed its doors, “the brand continues to exist,” he says, and has refocused on sports equipment. What to make of the link with the other activity that he has developed, Wati Sport Consulting, which cultivates young sports talents until they become professionals. One of his signings, Jason Ngouabi, has just joined FC Bastia-Borgo after two years at SM Caen.
“In a triangle, like Barça”
At the same time, he recently opened a sports complex in Bamako with a soccer field, a shop where his clothes are sold, a snack bar and a homework help service.
“We have three poles: music, sports and textiles. It is a triangle, like Barça: before they played positioned in a triangle, which made it difficult for the opponent to take. When the activities one works, we invest in the other two.”
Despite everything, Dawala remains the man behind Sexion d’Assaut. A historic success, no doubt because it brought about a small revolution in French rap by combining urban rhythms and pop sounds. “I think we had a fight with Sexion d’Assaut that changed minds,” Dawala said today. And who has been emulated: listening to Tiakola’s melodious rap, it’s hard not to see an heir there…
Source: BFM TV
