Major reggae figure on the island, iconic member of the Youth Waves Band, Patou has recently launched his solo career as Katoow. With the forthcoming release of his album and the creation of an area dedicated to culture, he has great plans. Encounter.
Born in Saint-Martin, Patricio Piper, a.k.a. Patou, started music at a “very very early age”. Guitar, bass, vocal, he is a self-taught man. “I think we can talk about being gifted”, he underlines. With his brother he built his first instruments from scratch, to form his first band. Immediately, composing and creating were natural to him. “I have always made my own little arrangements my way”, Patou explains. In Guadeloupe where he completed part of his schooling, the young man developed his passion for music. “I would often hear the same band play on my way back from school; with my backpack, I would stop to listen to them. One day, the singer was absent, I took the mic and we have no longer seen the guy”, the musician laughs.
Back in Saint-Martin, he founded Youth Waves in 1986 with his brother Alex Piper, Pascal Adams, Sulvère Mingau and Trevor Cassell. Their first album came out in 1990 and it thrusted the band into prominence, locally and internationally. The musicians were performing across the Caribbean, Europe and America. As the band evolved, Soca, Zouk and Calypso were added to a rather originally reggae repertoire.
In 2005, after a few experiences over the airwaves, Patou created his own radio, Youth Radio. “I wanted to offer something different, dedicated to youngsters”, he explains. Youth Radio is today one of the most listened radio of the island.
THINGS ARE MOVING
After this brilliant track record he has led in parallel to his job as a mailman during 35 years, in 2020, Patou decided to devote himself to his solo career. “When Covid happened, the only way for me to keep it together was to create“ he says. “I told myself it was time to look at what I had wanted to release for years”. Neither one nor two, bits of songs written years ago were drawn out, and others were created from scratch. Patou became Katoow, to give its own identity to this new album that focuses on his lifelong love: reggae, associated to Caribbean and world music. After a first music video shot in Senegal and released in 2019, two other videos shot in Guadeloupe and in Saint Martin should soon be unveiled.
What is also taking much of Patou’s time is a major undertaking that he has been maturing for several years: the opening of a bar-restaurant dedicated to music with a lounge area, a concert stage, a local art craft store, and Youth Radio studios. The first stone of the Main Street Café should soon be laid on République Street in Marigot. French and Creole refined cuisine, theme parties, concerts and exhibitions will be the secrets of this vibrant cultural and eclectic place, that Patou has imagined in his image.
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