It has been a while since I posted an article, so here it is, hope you'll like it, I'll try to make it a bit different from what I usually do.
So! now that you know me and my tastes in terms of music, you might think "oh well, another article on rock I guess", jokes on you, today I'm talking about rap, French rap!
So for most people, French rap is usually synonym of an over "autotuned", poorly written and commercial music (and I think our "local star" here in Marseille is a perfect example of that). But hold on, if Maitre Gims, Kaaris, Jul or even Black M manage to hold an important place in the box office, we shouldn't forget that French rap also used to be this:
Now I don't want to sound like the average (old) guy saying that "uuuuuhhhhh only old rap is good uuuuuhhhh", because I'm not. Honestly I'm not that much into rap, though I had the chance to discover some new talents thanks to a YouTuber that I think most of you know here: LinksTheSun. Indeed, thanks to him I could discover two young people from Toulouse: Big Flo & Oli.
Florian and Olivio are two young talents that emerged thanks to Internet, and you probably know them for songs such as "Comme d'hab" or "Gangsta". These records are indeed quite good (Gangsta is one of the funniest songs I know) but they are perhaps not the ones that show how much they are talented. In fact if most people know them, it's not because they preted to own thousands of guns and being the toughest guys on the planet, but mostly for their honesty: they don't pretend to be someone that they are not, they are completely honest about their life of average young adults (and also the changes that their career brings into their life). If their thematic was the only good thing about them, they wouldn't be that famous right? So here is the thing:
They are extremely talented.
Lyrics, rhymes, rhythm, flow, figures of speech... these guys have everything. And when you mix that with great music (both of them went to the conservatory), it gives us one of the best rappers that we can now hear. They are really making (street) poetry. But perhaps some of you might not know them already, no problem, here are some excellent records from them:
Je suis is certainly my favourite song from them, I have no words.
Aujourd'hui is one of those "feel good" songs that you can listen to when you feel down.
Jeunesse Influençable is (to me) one of their most serious records, one of those songs that want to show the youth (or perhaps ask them) what is going wrong with them.
Gangsta is clearly the song that represent them the most: just average young adults who assume their average life.
That's all for me Charlie, I'm trying to change a bit the form of my articles, so I won't post much articles before I find a new style.
See ya!
P.S: You should go and see LinksTheSun's analysis of Je suis, it's simply brilliant.
Oh! I know them, I remember listenting to them a lot when I was in middle school. Some of their songs are powerful I admit, they are the only rap singers I listen to (almost). They are better than jul but honestly who isn't? Anyway I haven't listened to them for a while. They seem to be pretty cool guys though, thank you bye
ReplyDeleteI admit it, I really dislike Jul, PNL, and aaall of these auto-tuned rappers (who doesn't?) and so at first I thought Bigflo and Oli would be like that to... When I took the time to actually listen to some of their songs, I realised that I was totally wrong. Most of their songs are great, and even if rap is my favourite genre of music, I like to listen to them from time to time. So thanks for sharing !
ReplyDeletePS: I think they will do a concert in Marseille in october (at la Fiesta des Suds) !
My bestfriend kept telling me to listen to them and how awesome they were so at the beginning of the summer I asked her a playlist of her favorite songs by them... And I was impressed by their flow, their lyrics and how humble and honest about themselves and their lives they are ! They didn't become my favorite rappers ever but I appreciate them a lot adn enjoyed listening to their songs during the summer :)
ReplyDeleteIska