Mistral Productions were approached by Island Records, as they planned the introduction of a Belgian artist to the UK market.
The artist, Stromae, was the biggest selling artist in France, Belgium and The Netherlands last year, going platinum (and diamond!) in multiple countries across Europe, amassing a huge following across the world. Despite his success on mainland Europe, Stromae remains less well-known in the UK and so we pitched a number of ideas to the label, and from those, Island commissioned a video interview. On April 3rd, whilst Stromae was in London we recorded a 40 minute English-language interview with Gilles Peterson as host, filmed down in the Brownswood Basement.
The final edit was 9 minutes long, intersecting footage from the interview with music and videos from Stromae's back catalog, producing a rich, visual representation of one of Gilles' now famed radio interviews. We hosted the video on Gilles Peterson's Youtube channel, and promoted it across Gilles' social media channels.
Gilles interviews the hugely successful Belgian rapper/songwriter Stromae at the Brownswood studios, London, England. The two chat in English about Stromae's musical beginnings, discussing early influences such as Congolese rumba and salsa, as well as the role music videos play in his songwriting, discussing the 'Tous Les Memes' and 'Papaoutai' videos.
The Facebook post reached over 1.25 million people, receiving 1100 likes and over 800 shares, with the video generating nearly 25,000 views in 2 weeks.
