Hyphen Hyphen is one of the most prominent young French pop groups.
In their second album, they made two music videos, “Like Boys” and “Mama Sorry” in the form of odes to sexual freedom.
In “Like Boys”, singer Samantha Cotta, known as Santa, loudly proclaims “I don't even like boys”.
The performer and the bassist Line are delighted with a free speech among the new singers, from Angela to Hoshi.
What do you think of Angèle's recent coming out?
Is it a strong symbol?
SANTA and LINE.
It's really great that an artist like Angèle says it because she has a huge fan community, including a lot of young women.
If Angèle can help little girls thrive, that's great.
Any word can liberate the next.
Ten years ago, an artist with such popularity could not have done it.
But last year, a celebrity magazine had photographed them with his girlfriend.
She didn't really have a choice.
We came out in high school and not in front of the tabloids.
It adds extra pressure and doubt to do it in the eyes of the world.
What she went through is really difficult.
Hoshi kissed a girl at the last Victoires de la Musique, unleashing a flood of hatred and even death threats ...
Yes.
And we had to dare to do it!
She took a flood of horrible insults.
The prejudices persist.
The first three sites offered by typing "lesbian" on Google are porn.
This word remains an insult and it has to be transformed into something normal.
We also had some backlash!
We also refuse to delete insulting comments so that people realize it.
Is a movement growing among artists?
Yes !
And this is only the beginning of a long road that is opening up.
There is a form of double punishment for lesbians, with the struggle for equality with men.
We cannot separate these battles that arise from feminism.
But it is really strong what we are going through.
It feels good to feel supported, to see other artists talking about it.
Even if, when you see what Hoshi went through, it is scary.
This is also why we must continue to free speech.
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Was it difficult to take responsibility for your homosexuality publicly?
It happened naturally between the first and the second album.
Being a group has helped us.
The audience also came with a kindness which allowed us to be ourselves.
However, this is our first interview on this subject.
We never came out publicly.
What was the trigger?
The strike for all !
We suffered from it.
Before, we were in a naive bubble where lesbians were invisible and homophobia too.
By putting faces to this hate, there has clearly been a before and an after.
So we reacted artistically.
Speaking up was also unconsciously a form of liberation and revenge, a response to insults we received as “dirty lesbians” or to friends who turned away from us as a teenager.
Friends have also been assaulted.
We are also part of it ...
Are you afraid of the label “homosexual musician”?
It is a fear that we had at the beginning.
We always want our music to be listened to without prejudice, but we understood that it was just an artist's fantasy.
We always listen with a priori, so you might as well choose the prism yourself!
What was the position of your record company?
We did not leave the choice to our employees.
We always had our chin very high and we never left room for doubt.
They couldn't say no to us.
Artist friends have taken some thoughts but this industry is evolving in the right direction.
As long as we remain in this logic of entertaining, there is no reluctance.
And the audience is expanding more and more.
Have your committed clips "Like Boys" or "Mama Sorry" had a negative impact on your sales?
On the contrary !
“Like Boys” is the biggest single we've ever released.
Under the clip "Mama Sorry", we wanted to cry while reading the comments they were so beautiful and benevolent.
We would have liked to see this clip when we were 16 years old.
That's why we did it.
Did you suffer from the absence of homosexual models during your teenage years?
It's true that we haven't had any except in series like "L Word" in the 2000s. No singer has given us the message: "it's cool to be a lesbian".
Even in the cinema there are a lot of gay couples but few lesbians.
So, when we see our audience proudly carrying flags while elsewhere in the world a teenage girl is driven to suicide for having carried this same flag, we tell ourselves that we are not doing this for nothing.
