Le GrigriLe Grigri

Le Grigri came out of a trip to London. Antoine Bos, Mathieu Durand and Guillaume Biau went to the Total Refreshment Centre, saw what was happening to jazz there, and started a Paris station in 2018 to do something equivalent — a grigri being a lucky charm, which is roughly the role they had in mind for it. It runs as an association with no subsidy and no advertising whatsoever, paid for by crowdfunding and by ploughing its DJ-set fees back in, out of a room on rue Riquet in the 19th.

The remit is Great Black Music, read as widely as the phrase allows: French jazz next to New York rap, harp records next to beat tapes. A dozen regular shows carry it, from Next Jazz and Fresh Beats to Taxi Brousse and the Soul Bag show, with Cartes Blanches handed to visiting musicians, and the station writes about the records as much as it plays them.