Alaclair Ensemble - Alaclair High - 2016
When I was a teenager, we made fun of French-language hip hop. I could claim that the music deserved it, but I know better than that. We had barely listened to Loco Locass, Dubmatique or MC Solaar; certainly, we barely understood their verses. Our opinions were driven by a combination of childishness and xenophobia. Rap, to us, was the exclusive property of English speakers. Québécois rap, in particular, seemed an example of risible cultural hubris. It’s a strain of prejudice that runs deep in anglophone Canada: How dare a minority group try to compete with American entertainment? If the rest of Canada hasn’t been able to resist cultural colonization, why should Quebec?
Thankfully, Quebec’s French-language hip-hop scene hasn’t spent more than cinq minutes worrying about anglo-Canadian insecurities. With every year, the province’s MCs and DJs swagger even more proudly, emboldened by regional crowds and an international hip-hop audience that doesn’t particularly privilege the language of Shakespeare and Run-DMC. Yes, there’s a specific satisfaction to hearing rhymes in your own native dialect, but there’s also a pleasure in hearing hip hop bend across a foreign set of phonemes.
Montreal’s Alaclair Ensemble is luscious, playful and world class. Like Drake or Nas, the group can uncover the melancholy in the corner of the party; like Kardinal Offishall or E-40, they can find the joke at the foot of the casket. I’m writing about them in The Globe and Mail, however, because I endorse Alaclair High even if you don’t know a scélérat from scoliosis. Hip hop’s about lyrics, rhymes, but like most music it’s also about rhythm, repetition, flow. There are a billion Rolling Stones fans across the globe who don’t know what a midnight rambler is. ODB’s popularity didn’t rest upon his comprehensibility. We can find meaning in anything and this song, like so many, shrugs right over the language barrier. Spend some of this summer with your neighbours.
The Posterz - Bulalay
Speaking of neighbours, the Posterz are also from Montreal. On Bulalay, the English-speaking trio rap over a spacious, organic beat – a production that’s unusually composed and melodic, at least compared with the minimal, dissonant or pummelling arrangements that make up current trends. The MCs don’t overimpose themselves upon the song: They accompany it, subject themselves to its weather. Uninterrupted, Bulalay becomes an immersive experience – humid, fragrant, like ducking into the Montreal Biodome’s trilling rainforest zone. The Arcadian ambience is in vivid contrast to the lyrics: Like fellow urbanite Kendrick Lamar, the Posterz’ verses address city living’s high-stakes troubles, inequalities carved long ago into pavement.
Sean Michaels received the 2014 Scotiabank Giller Prize for his novel Us Conductors. He is the editor of the music blog, Said the Gramophone.