"Music has been the place where I could go to hide and forget about the
world. I couldn't make sense of a majority of the things that happened
to me, so I used music as a shield. But over time, music has become a
vehicle to channel out everything that I've been keeping from myself
for all these years. And the new album is definitely the most honest,
real assessment of everything that's happened in my life, because I'm
not trying to hide as much."--Corneille
The release of The Birth of
Cornelius doesn't just mark the arrival of a major new artist on Motown
Records. The album chronicles the latest chapter for a musician who has
already had a remarkable career--and an extraordinary life. Though
virtually unknown to an American audience, Corneille sells out arenas
in other parts of the world. His albums have reached monumental,
Diamond-selling status in France. And those accomplishments follow
struggles and challenges in his personal history that are truly beyond
comprehension.
Corneille Nyungura was born in Fribourg,
Germany, where his parents were students. At the age of six, his family
returned to Rwanda, their country of origin. "When I went to Rwanda for
the first time, there was a sense of going to the place where I
belonged," he says. "But because my parents were very much Westernized,
I still felt like I didn't fit in."
As a boy, Corneille began
to develop an interest in music--initially discovering Michael Jackson
(although "because we were so far from MTV, most kids didn't even know
what he looked like"), and then the great soul artists who would shape
his style: Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Prince.
He
credits his father for nurturing his interest. "I was singing something
in my room," he says, "and my dad heard me, and said, `That sounds
good, it kind of sounds like Tracy Chapman.' And I remember thinking,
`Oh, It's OK for me to make music.' That was a very unique thing
because music is a big part of African culture, but we never considered
it as a job option." At age 16, he made his first recording, and was
selected as a finalist in a music contest sponsored by the state-run
television station.
But in 1994, Rwanda's President Habyarimana
was assassinated, and the largest, most horrific genocide in modern
history claimed over 800,000 victims. Corneille's parents and other
family members were killed in the massacre. He alone managed to
escape--first to Kinshasa, and then to Germany, where he was taken in
by some family friends.
When asked how surviving such an
incomprehensible tragedy has shaped his outlook, and his music,
Corneille is strikingly calm. "For a good ten years after the
genocide," he says, "I lived in a great deal of denial. But I managed
not to get too bitter because I had parents who always made me feel
special. It's a sort of pain that you can have closure with. I know I'm
not going to be able to talk to my family ever again, but they left me
with memories filled with such love that I don't have that much anger."
Corneille stayed in Germany for three years before moving to
Montréal--part of the North American world that had shaped his musical
dreams, but still familiar for its French language. He attended
Concordia College, but decided that it was time for him to get serious
about his music. He formed a band called O.N.E. (Original New Element),
and, in 2002, released his first studio album, Parce Qu'on Vient de
Loin.
"There are hardly any outlets for English-speaking
artists in Quebec," he says. "I realized that would be a great
challenge--since there's really no French soul or R&B music that
exists, it gave me the opportunity to have my own little niche."
Initially,
Parce Qu'on Vient de Loin made little impression in Canada, but it was
soon discovered in France. At his first shows, in a small Parisian
club, the room was already packed with fans singing all of his lyrics;
they had chased down copies of the album, imported from Quebec.
Following
its success overseas, the album was re-released in Canada, and took off
behind the single "Rêves de Star," eventually achieving Platinum sales
status. Corneille received his first Felix Award, selected by the
public, for Best Male Artist. In France, sales of Parce Qu'on Vient de
Loin soared past a million.
In 2005, Corneille recorded a song
with Senegalese superstar Youssou N'Dour in support of UNICEF and the
fight against AIDS. (Corneille is a Red Cross Canada spokesperson, and
has been made a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.) That same year, his second
studio album, Les Marchands de Rêves, was released. A sixty-date tour
of France had a total attendance of over 200,000 fans, and was followed
by an acoustic tour in the fall of 2006.
But Corneille wasn't
fully satisfied by his triumphs in Europe and Africa. "I was starting
to feel lost," he says. "With my French albums, I was becoming a symbol
for something, a persona, more than an individual. I needed to break
from that--and it doesn't get any more humbling than coming to the
U.S., because you really do have to start from scratch."
Corneille
began working on the songs that would become The Birth of Cornelius
album. As he got closer to the tradition and culture that first drew
him to music, his acoustic-based R&B sound began to come fully into
its own. "When I allowed myself to write in English, everything was
different," he says. "I came up with some of the songs in five, ten
minutes, because it was just pouring out. I guess I was reconnecting
with the way I saw and understood music when I was little, and that was
an amazing experience for me."
After all this time, after all
these travels and tragedies, Corneille and his music are finally ready
to take on America. And he can't wait.
"I look at America, and
I see so much of who I am," he says. "The identity confusion that I've
been struggling with all my life is the same that most people here go
through. When I think of America, the first thing that comes to my mind
is the sense that I might truly feel understood for the first time."
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