"Armand Est Mort" gets a laid-back feel from the sax solo, and a single, mood-creating piano chord echoes "Inner City Blues" enough to make you wonder if that's a fragmentary sample of Marvin Gaye's voice popping up there in the background. The producer's like that, very smoooove but also deceptive in that there's always a lot going on in the arrangements underneath.
Solaar is far from one-dimensional, adeptly adopting a conversational tone ("Victime de la Mode" on a fashion victim theme), changing up vocal tempos (the low-key "A Temps Partiel," a slick segue from the brief, jazzy-with-acoustic-bass "Interlude"), and leaving more open spaces in the forceful "Quartier Nord." He whispers the lost-love tale "Caroline" while Jimmy Jay enhances the melancholy mood with mournful strings and his customary attention to detail and dynamics (listen for the near-subliminal organ).
The title track immediately alerts you to the difference - the rapid but never rushed delivery works off the rhythms of active, chopping drums anchoring a full arrangement topped by organ fills and flavored by sax near the end. It's French hip-hop and therefore a softer, gentler sound with the music more on the acid jazz tip to match the rhythm and flavor of Solaar's native tongue. Most of his lyrics read as "I'm the man" MC boasts and shout-outs to the Paris hip-hop crew, but the French rapper has superb flow and a masterful producer in Jimmy Jay, an absolute natural when it comes to creating sonic pastiches/collages to fit the lyrics. The debut disc from MC Solaar is a clear signal that quality hip-hop can exist outside the U.S. One of the few bright spots in a year when the alternative rap scene was largely devoid of originality, MC Solaar came across as refreshing as a cool Parisian breeze.Purchase and download this album in a wide variety of formats depending on your needs. The extremely subtle grooves supplied by DJ/producer Jimmy Jay provide velvety smooth cushions that wrap around Solaar's warm voice tighter than O.J Simpson's glove, with jazzy, funky samples that prove perfectly suited for the fluid rhymes. With the rapid-fire rhyme flow of Souls of Mischief and the smooth delivery of Q-Tip, the young MC conveys more moods in French than most rappers can in English. Album DescriptionĪfter his high-profile duet with Guru on the first Jazzmatazz project, French rapper MC Solaar proved himself a major contender for international rap stardom with his U.S. See More Your browser does not support the audio element.
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