WAX TAILOR

BIOGRAPHY

Fascinated by the music of the 60s and 70s, Wax Tailor (“le tailleur de cire”) immerses us in a black-and-white world where vinyl and samples of all kinds become one. Starting the golden age of hip-hop  in the 90s, Jean-Christophe Le Saoût (his real name) became closely linked with the rap scene and formed his first band, La Formule, marking his debut as a composer.

In 2002, he launched a solo career and became Wax Tailor. Throughout his albums, the Frenchman dusts off cinematic sequences such as “The Great Dictator” by Charlie Chaplin and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” by Alfred Hitchcock. His hit “Que Sera,” which mixes hip-hop, classical music, jazz, and soul, quickly became a global sensation. For him, the rhythm of the dialogues in these films adapts perfectly to the codes of hip-hop, becoming real sample lyrics in his almost orchestral pieces. This trademark style gave him the opportunity to collaborate with great figures of the genre such as Ghostface Killah (Wu-Tang Clan), Tricky (Massive Attack), Sharon Jones, D-Smoke, and Del The Funky Homosapien (Gorillaz), and also aroused interest from Nina Simone’s heirs, who commissioned a remix of her song “How I Feel.”

Although Wax Tailor easily plays with his inspirations, such as Galt MacDermot, composer of the soundtrack “Hair” (1967), the producer quickly became one who could be sampled by creating his own sound bank and inviting, for example, Don McCorkindale, the legendary voice of the BBC, to narrate his album “Dusty Rainbow From The Dark.” Wax Tailor gives a new dimension to his music by adapting it to live symphony orchestra performances for the album and tour “Phonovisions Symphonic Orchestra,” which gives his music an even more cinematic dimension.

It’s no surprise that director Cédric Klapisch chose the song “Seize The Day” to punctuate his film “Paris,” where his characters evolve in the mysterious and romantic theater of the capital. Wax Tailor’s music builds a bridge between the Moulin Rouge in Montmartre and Anglo-Saxon rap: it links velvet and asphalt, the past and the future, nostalgia for a vanished world, and revolt for a new one to be built. Sometimes melancholic but always textured, rich, and poetic, his compositions are imbued with elegance and originality, recognizable at the slightest listen.