Some family businesses are best left out of the studio, but for Montreal-based producer AKPOSSOUL, working alongside his older brother Manoo has proved a productive arrangement. With more than 25 years in French house behind him, Manoo has been both a mentor and collaborator, although AKPOSSOUL is increasingly finding his own feet after more than a decade behind the decks.
Their latest collaboration, “FORCE”, lands on Rocco Rodamaal’s XPLR imprint, bringing a few familiar names from French house history back together.
We caught up with AKPOSSOUL to discuss the advantages (and occasional complications) of making music with family, finding an identity beyond his brother’s considerable shadow, the influence of his West African heritage, and why he’s in no particular hurry to decide what an AKPOSSOUL record should sound like.
You and Manoo are brothers, but you’re also at very different points in your careers. When you work together, how easy is it to leave that history and those roles outside the studio and meet simply as two producers?
It’s actually quite natural for us. Of course, we have a long history as brothers, and Manoo has been an important influence in my musical journey, but when we’re working on music, we try to approach things from a creative point of view rather than from our family roles.
We can be very direct with each other, which I think is important in the studio. There’s no need to protect an idea just because it’s yours. We listen, we challenge each other, and we try to serve the music first. In that sense, the relationship as brothers can actually become a strength because there is already a deep level of trust.
Manoo has been part of French house for more than 25 years, while your own production career is still relatively young. Has having someone that close to you with such an established musical identity been liberating, intimidating, or occasionally something you’ve needed to push against?
I would say a bit of all three. Having someone so close to me with such a strong musical identity has definitely been inspiring, but I’ve also always been conscious of the importance of finding my own voice.
Manoo has opened doors for me creatively and taught me a lot, but I never wanted to simply reproduce what he does. If anything, his experience gave me the confidence to explore my own direction. I think the goal is not to move away from his influence, but to transform everything I’ve learned into something that feels authentically mine.
“FORCE” takes its time. It keeps accumulating tension rather than giving the listener an obvious payoff early on. Was that patience there from the beginning, or did you have to resist the temptation to make the track reveal itself more quickly?
The patience was there quite early in the process. We wanted the track to breathe and to create a feeling of anticipation rather than immediately giving everything away.
There’s always a temptation in electronic music to add something every few bars or to make the payoff arrive too quickly. With “FORCE,” we tried to trust the groove and let the tension build naturally. The idea was to make the listener feel that something is coming without necessarily knowing exactly when it will happen.
You were born in Lyon, have West African heritage and now live in Montreal. Do those different places actually show up in the music you make, or are you wary of people looking for geography and heritage in your records simply because they know your background?
I think all of those places are part of me, but I don’t necessarily try to represent them consciously when I make music. My background naturally influences the way I hear rhythm, groove and energy, just as my years in France and my life in Montreal have shaped my musical perspective. But I’m not interested in making music that fits a geographical expectation. I think people can sometimes look for a direct connection between someone’s heritage and their sound, when music is much more complex than that.
For me, it’s less about representing a place and more about expressing my own experience through sound.
You spent more than a decade DJing before becoming more visible as a producer. What did all those years of playing other people’s records teach you that you couldn’t have learned by sitting in a studio?
DJing taught me how music actually lives on a dancefloor. You can spend hours in the studio working on a track, but when you play it in front of people, you immediately understand what creates movement, tension, emotion or connection. You learn to read a room, to understand timing, dynamics and energy, and also when to do less.
Those years also exposed me to a huge range of music and taught me to listen beyond genres. I think that experience is still very present in the way I produce today.
Your earlier single “Sakana” introduced you to a wider audience, while “FORCE” moves into darker and more expansive territory. At this stage, are you actively trying to establish what an AKPOSSOUL record is, or would defining that too early feel restrictive?
I’m more interested in developing a feeling than defining a formula. “Sakana” and “FORCE” are quite different records, and I’m happy about that. At this stage, I want people to recognize the intention and the energy behind an AKPOSSOUL record rather than expecting a specific structure or sound every time.
Of course, there are certain elements that naturally come back in my music — groove, atmosphere, percussion, tension and a strong connection to the dancefloor — but I don’t want to put myself in a box too early. I’m still discovering what the AKPOSSOUL sound can become.
There’s a wider family tree around this record, because Manoo and Rocco’s relationship goes back to Rodamaal and the French house scene of the late ’90s and 2000s. Did you feel any weight from that history when making something for Rocco’s new label, or was the interesting part precisely being able to take that relationship somewhere new?
I’ve been a fan of Rocco’s productions for a long time, so releasing a track on his label is something I’m genuinely proud of. Beyond the musical history, Rocco is also someone who is close to my family, so this record carries a personal meaning for me as well.
I’m very aware of the history between Rocco and Manoo, and of everything that came from the Rodamaal era and that generation of French house. But I didn’t feel any pressure to recreate that history. For me, it was more about being part of that story while bringing my own perspective to it.
Being able to release “FORCE” on Rocco’s label makes the connection even more special because it brings together different generations and chapters of our musical journey. It feels like a continuation of something that started a long time ago, but with a new energy and a new direction.
Rocco talks about XPLR as a label built around experience rather than rules. That sounds simple, but electronic music can become very good at creating its own categories and expectations. What are the rules, musical or otherwise, that you’re most interested in ignoring at this point in your career?
Probably the rule that says you have to sound a certain way to belong somewhere. Electronic music has so many categories now, and they can be useful, but they can also become limiting. I’m interested in following the idea rather than the genre — if something feels right musically, I don’t really care whether it fits neatly into Afro House, Deep House, Techno or something else.
I also want to ignore the pressure to constantly produce or to chase what is currently working. I’d rather take my time, experiment and make records that have their own identity. For me, the most interesting music is usually the music that doesn’t completely explain itself.
FORCE is out 16 October on XPLR
