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Kiddy Smile: ‘People in France were upset I was black, gay – and proud’

When he got a surprise invite to perform for President Emmanuel Macron, the musician, DJ and dancer faced down his critics with a bold and provocative statement

Kiddy Smile towers over me. I am 6ft 3in, and feel petite next to him. He is relatively svelte at the moment, having been ill during the past year with phlebitis and “the beginning of a pulmonary embolism”, but he has always been defined by being, in his own words, “fat and tall”. But this is, in part, what led Pierre Hache from being a kid from the Paris banlieues becoming a charismatic house artist, whose debut album One Trick Pony is a celebration of his identity as a black, gay man. It is enormously sexual, at times squelchingly acidic, and huge fun – energy he also parlays into his appearance in Gaspar Noé’s new dance-troupe movie, Climax.

In June, Kiddy Smile was invited to DJ at an event at the Elysée. He agreed, assuming it was at Elysée Montmartre, a club everyone refers to by the first part of its name. Then his manager called to say President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte wanted to do something with him. “I laughed. ‘Macron isn’t going there!’ My manager said: ‘No, we’re going to the presidential palace. I’ve just been doing your security clearance.’”

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2orpIjq
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