“Without my audience and my hometown I wouldn't be here”: Demi Portion, tireless promoter of rap in Sète

La scène flottante sur le cadre royal a inauguré le festival mercredi dernier. – DR

Rachid Daif, alias Demi Portion, est le fondateur et l’organisateur du Demi Festival. Pour Midi Libre, il revient sur la genèse de ce projet inédit qui draine une certaine vision de la programmation.

The Demi Festival is already in its 8th edition, can you remind us in what context it was born?

I had always only opened here, at the Théâtre de la Mer. From my albumDragon Rash, we started to have a lot of fun at the Rockstore, at the Victoire II, at the Antirouille but also throughout France. I was starting to have an audience but we had never had a big party in Sète. So I created a Facebook event, it was in 2016, in which I announced my first concert in my hometown. And then we were overwhelmed: we found ourselves with more than 90,000 people interested in the event, that’s where it all started.

The magic still works after all these years?

We are in an extraordinary setting, we still have difficulty realizing it. Every time the festival date arrives, we get a rush of energy and emotions. This project is really close to our hearts, what I can say is that it does us a lot of good. And then to do it in my hometown, it’s an honor and a pride to bring back all these groups who come from the four corners of France and even beyond. This festival is our greatest success.

Today, what exactly is your role in the event?

I take care of all the programming part. The rest, I am proud to say that I have managed to delegate. Over the years, I have learned to trust and I have understood that you can't do anything alone. Now, there are about 300 of us taking care of the event, it is a great collective adventure.

How did you design this programming ?

I do it the way I've been rapping for 20 years now: by feeling. I try as much as possible to mix old school and new generation. What speaks to me today is rap that keeps values, very written rap that respects hip-hop. It's important that it's at least a little polished. We also try to put a lot of girls on stage, which is why we organized this 100% female springboard last May. Overall, it's the whole hip-hop culture that we try to bring to the city and showcase, with its five disciplines: rap of course, but also breakdancing, graffiti, DJing and beatboxing. All this forms a big salad of Sète and hip-hop that kills.

How do you project yourself into the future ?

I remain independent. Independent and underground. Anything that comes from the “lower depths” is often not taken seriously. We try to show that what comes from below can bring a beautiful light and that we are capable of doing as well as a big machine. I don't want to make the festival bigger, I want it to remain family-oriented and on a human scale. We must remain humble and keep our feet on the ground.

On the program for this Saturday, August 10 at the Théâtre de la Mer from 6:30 p.m.: DJ Charly Cut, 2L, Okis & Mani Deïz, Triptik, Souffrance, La Rumeur, Demi Portion, Cut Killer. I subscribe to read the rest