Club Regulars 004: Vincent Frederic-Colombo

Welcome to Club Regulars – The Face’s series spotlighting the DJs, promoters, performers and activists with love for their local scenes.

French-born and Guadeloupe-raised Vincent Frederic-Colombo is a portfolio Parisienne. He is at once art director, model scout, stylist, designer and founding member of LA CREOLE party collective. The crew — Vincent plus Fanny Viguier, Geoffrey Cochard and Steven Jacques — are proud followers of French philosopher Édouard Glissant’s school of Creolite, a celebration of Creole as a global identity and a source of power and self-worth. Fanny and Vincent have worked together since 2014 on multi-disciplinary fashion and photography projects called CREOLE SOUL, ​“a manifesto to defend the Creole identity”. Geoffrey and Steven came on board in 2017 and their already-legendary, edge-of-the-city raves grew organically from the collective realisation that their exhibition after-party was the most ​“turn up” night in town.

How did you first develop a passion for raving?

It was around 2010 when I started to get into the fashion after-show scene. I met people from underground scenes like Trou aux biches, Flash Cocotte and the parties by Aladin like Poney Club. Or more recently I’ve been loving Peripate — private non-conformist parties thrown by an exclusive group of friends taking place in illicit places.

What’s special about your local club scene?

The Parisian scene is really eclectic. There are a lot of good collectives and promoters who are really animating things. A lot of Paris nightlife used to take place in more industrial areas, whereas now it’s refreshing to see rooftop and terrace parties in spring and summer. It’s also more interesting now that nightlife is expanding out to the suburbs.

What’s special about your party in particular?

We wanted this party to be an experimental meeting of Jamaican soundsystem culture and an underground Berlin party with vogue beats and Carnival rhythms. We create an inter-cultural place, promote diverse music and enable a dialogue between the creole ​‘way’ and European clubbing culture. We’re one of the rare collectives in town playing bouyon, konpa, qcom, afrobeats, gabber, uk funky, zouk, gwo ka, baile funk and cumbia all in the same party.

What challenges does your scene face?

The concept of what creole means is often misunderstood — it’s complex and people need time to understand it for themselves. We’re determined to continue asking questions.

If someone is visiting Paris for a weekend, where do you recommend that they go?

I really like the atmosphere of Puce de Saint-Ouen flea market. You can find fake luxury items, second hand clothes and antique furniture. It’s a mix of pop and bobo worlds. For clubbing I recommend le Chinois and la Marbrerie in Montreuil. There’s also La Station at Aubervilliers — it’s bit out of central Paris, like a little Brooklyn.

Of all the stuff you’ve achieved so far, what are you most proud of?

We threw the opening party at Hyères Festival. Hyères means a lot to me because I applied three times to the competition between 2015 and 2018 and made it to the pre-selection twice. Now it feels like it’s coming full-circle — I always wanted to represent my vision at the contest, and this year we were there, inter-mingling creole music with the future of the fashion industry.

Any other DJs/​promoters/​performers from the scene you’d like to shout out?

Sylvere, Lazy Flow, Teki Latex, CrystallMess, Christophe Martinon and Rinse France have been there since the beginning. With their collaboration and their dedication we’ve been able to crystallise our concept and make LA CREOLE what it is today.

Any dream guests at future parties?

So many! Diplo, Black Coffee, Bianca Oblivion, Manara, DJ Mike Q, Vjuan Allure, Principé, Moonshine, Kaytranada. But alongside the headliner names we’ll always be searching for local emerging talents.

@vincentfredericcolombo