In recent days, Vivien Vallay has not stopped responding to media requests.
The author of the song "Chaud Cacao" interpreted by Annie Cordy defends tooth and nail his text, object of controversy among our neighbors.
Since the Brussels metropolis renamed “Annie-Cordy” its longest tunnel until then called “Léopold-II” to draw a line on the colonialist past of the former King of the Belgians, activists believe that the spirit of the song "Chaud Cacao" would be racist.
The title, released in 1985, is one of the best known in the repertoire of the artist who died last September.
For this inhabitant of Montfort-l'Amaury (Yvelines), “this song is not racist and never will be”.
The 68-year-old lyricist would "never have imagined" that he would fall on him because of this music: "we absolutely do not make fun of Africans in there".
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In addition to the lyrics, associations consider that the choreography of the clip conveys racist stereotypes because, at one point, the characters are in the dark and we see big red lips.
"This mouth represents greed because the desire to eat chocolate takes us while listening to the song", sweeps the author.
Annie Cordy was "a ray of sunshine"
He hammers it, Annie Cordy was anything but racist.
For him, it is an excellent idea to give his name to an underground: “at the end of the tunnel, we find the sun and that's exactly what Annie was, a ray of sunshine”.
After their first success together with the title “Vanini vanillée”, the story of a tamouré dancer, Vivien Valley wrote the song “Chaud Chocolat” in the early 1980s. At that time, he had two jobs, l 'one day and the other at night.
“It was very tiring, I needed energy and one day when I got home in the morning, I drank hot chocolate,” says the artist.
On the package, he sees a baobab with a sun.
This is where the idea came to him: "I imagined warriors going on a lion hunt singing hot cocoa".
A song written in fifteen minutes
In fifteen minutes, the song is written.
“It's an automatic writing that came to me without thinking about anything at all, I needed bouncing sounds.
The lyricist sends the text to Annie Cordy's artistic director.
“He replied that the chorus was going to become a huge hit.
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He also specifies that a version of the song in Spanish was sung by his friend Mike N'Dy, a singer of Senegalese origin.
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“The only racist in this story is Dieudonné.
The polemicist has indeed transformed "Chaud Cacao" into "Shoah nanas".
Vivien Vallay sued him to remove the anti-Semitic text from social networks and after six years of proceedings, the artist finally won his trial.
"I would do the exact same thing again"
When asked whether he would write the same text today, Vivien Valley replied without hesitation: "I would do exactly the same thing, there is no mischief, the subject is pure".
In some comments on social networks in particular, the text is also accused of promoting pedophilia.
"The accusations of racism annoy me but the stories of pedophilia hurt me even more, I am shocked to see how far the wickedness can go, this poor song did not deserve all that.
"
Even if he recognizes that his lyrics "are no longer in fashion today", this grandfather is happy that children are still listening to his songs.
“Without knowing it, my grandson's nanny makes him listen to Chaud Cacao and that is the greatest reward.
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