Si On T'demande by MC Solaar feat. Bambi Cruz

I love MC Solaar.  He’s likely my favorite rapper next to Aesop Rock & Jay-Z.  The amazing thing about him is he tells stories like Country music, but still has that swagger.  He’s a bit boring in concert, but his albums are insane.  Born Dakar, Senegal at a young age he’s credited with popularizing rap in France.  This song Si On T’demande (If We Ask You) is my favorite song from my favorite album, Chapitre 7 (Chapter 7).  His flow is sick, he mixes it up, yet its seamless.  He also has an unreal step in from featured artist Bambi Cruz.  

My favorite part from the song is the delivery from Bambi Cruz “Les gens qui ment, on les tics n’est ce pas?”  That means “People who lie have tics, no?”  While he delivers that line he cracks his voice which seems like a mistake, but it’s him indicating his tick, showing he’s lying. He does this “cracking of his voice” earlier in all his question lines earlier in beginning his stanzas.  Should we believe anything he says?  It’s brilliant.

This song is less a story, but more of him showing his skills and dissing some random person who’s never named. In between insulting the nameless dude’s intelligence, and/or inexperience, and/or maybe it’s just unwillingness to be willing or able to share something about deep about himself. MC Solaar & Bambi Cruise walk around whoever that nameless guy is with their flow and incredibly varied knowledge about the world. They artistically reveal what they care about as older, wiser men. MC Solaar wanted to save the world but says he’s really just living. Bambi Cruz talks about being old, expressing how he sees interactions between women and men, and many other thoughts that come from his smart observances on the world he knows well.

The great thing about this rap is that not using anyone’s actual name to diss, they’re sort of dissing anyone else who isn’t them, especially young kids coming into the rap game. The rhymes are so sick we agree with them and declare them the winners of this fictional rap battle without knowing or caring who the nameless person is or if they did their (rap) battle before or after this song.

I have listened to this song just on repeat over and over and every verse blows me away every time and the chorus gives me chills.  Even though the mandolin really carries the beat, that fucking flute doesn’t hurt either.

French lyrics translated to English

Bold are the words Bambi Cruz cracks his voice with this delivery

MC Solaar

I wanted to change the the world like Bono & Yoko Ono

That without making clowning around, the masculinity or bonobo

I hideout in the streets like a functionaire of Beauvau (street in Paris)

Listening to Kid Loco, Powo Wow, and Lil’ Bow Wow

I loved K. Solo, Holiday of Monsieur Hulot

The scratches of DJ Polo, the nerve of Nico Hulot

Well ahead of No Logo, I believe that I was eco

Because I lived through Seveso, Chernobyl, and then Amoco

Claude-Claude, M-M, C-C, So-So, la-laar

oft-oft, en-en, two-two, time-times over just one, which it restarts

Maybe that secret can prepare Raffarin 2012 (presidential candidate)

Maybe the bamboo crisis is caused by Bambi Cruz

Now, I’ll break it down: the girls want big jugs

The men become crazy, they have photos of Rocco (famous movie)

Liquid flows, think solid, Alstom (railroad manufacturer)

The gas state are the words for Gazprom (Russian Energy Company)

Chorus

If we ask you?

Well, you say you don’t know!

If we ask you?

Well, you say you don’t know!

If we ask you?

Well, you say you don’t know!

If we ask you?

Well, you say you don’t know!

Bambi Cruz

Call me Submarina because the taffy is what me make in loucedé (secret Parisian language)

In order to breath fresh air in our area

One asks myself often,

Bambi Cruz, tell me what’s up?

The good pieces are more rare than the hair on our heads

Seriously, is God dead?  More hardcore

The seasons disappear in the Quartier Nord at Vercors (neighborhood in Paris at a mountain range)

Because mamas come from Panama savor my banana

Escalade like the ones that climb Himalaya

devour it like a Tagada (amusement ride)

Then they come to do dada on daddy

The most attractive pappa as the last Prada

The people who lie have ticks, no? 

If we ask you?  Well, you say you don’t know!

Chorus

If we ask you?

Well, you say you don’t know!

If we ask you?

Well, you say you don’t know!

If we ask you?

Well, you say you don’t know!

If we ask you?

Well, you say you don’t know!

There are more zeros behind their Euro

and even more they’re happy

Dude, you’re not zero net

we can save the planet

without making chicks

The Bible is the calculator

Chorus

If we ask you?

Well, you say you don’t know!

If we ask you?

Well, you say you don’t know!

If we ask you?

Well, you say you don’t know!

If we ask you?

Well, you say you don’t know!

Bambi Cruz

When we debark at the park in a 4x4 just chatting,

it claps. So, what’s that brand?

Chorus

If we ask you?

Well, you say you don’t know!

If we ask you?

MC Solaar

Name, Last, Age, Profession, Sex, or Religion?

Well, you say you don’t know!

Bambi Cruz

Are you brunette or blonde, skinny or round, dumb or the Mona Lisa?

Chorus

Well, you say you don’t know!

MC Solaar

Even if you know who’s going to win the World Cup and the lads ask you

Chorus

Well, you say you don’t know!

MC Solaar

If a dude in a parka approaches you and asks your name,

Well, you say you don’t know.

Song: La Flaca by Jarabe de Palo

La Flaca has a classical coastal vibe.  Of course this song is catchy, the rhythm and lead guitar drive the thing, and the drums constantly slap you in the face to keep movin’ on the dance floor, but the lyrics really push this for me song over.  That and the constant change in delivery and flow of the song.

In the life a woman known as the Skinny Girl

Coral black from Havana, extremely mulatto

A hundred pounds of skin and bone, forty kilos of Salsa

And in her face two suns that speak without words

Speak without words

The Skinny Girl sleeps during the day, they say that’s how she gets hungry

And when the night fals, she descends to dance with the glass

To dance and dance, and drink and drink

One beer after another, but she never gains weight

But she never gains wait

Chorus

For one kiss from the Skinny Girl, I’d give everything

For one kiss from her, I’d give everything

For one kiss from the Skinny Girl, I’d give everything

For one kiss from her, even just once

Even just once

Soaking wet are my white sheets, like the song says

Remembering the caresses that brought the first day

And I’m becoming insane trying to win favor to sleep by your side

Because, God, this skinny girl makes me crazy

She makes me crazy

Chorus

Chorus

The song may sound a bit misogynistic, which it is a bit. However, this guy singing is infatuated with this party girl who seems to be hiding so much of her life that she ends up burying some pain it each night in drink and dance.  He knows her well. If he’s a friend or an acquaintance, we can’t quite tell. But it’s obvious that he wants more. 

La Flaca is a song of intrigue where the lyrics give you just enough of the story to want more.  The harmonies lift you through the end, repeating the lyrics, “Even just once.”

I love it.

Song: What He Wrote by Laura Marling

I was introduced to this song by a former love interest. What He Wrote by Laura Marling has such a mood. The lyrics carry it, as its a woman recounting the end of one relationship that cut her deep, she constantly is reminded of him referring to a letter the man wrote. She starts of by saying she had nothing to say after the devastation, but then goes to tell the rest of the story, a bit ironically. Yet you don’t feel that irony at all, the listener only falls into her sorrow that cuts much deeper than melancholy. She expresses a regret that she doesn’t quite place what she actually regrets or what she would have changed, I think because she loved the relationship how it was. So in lieu of regret she immediately talks of real anger of when she fought the man that she fell for when he left and broke up with her, choosing war over her.

Laura seems to relate both of the men in her life in a perfect light. She in turn seems to see herself as the broken one. This leads to the men in her life having some kind of control over her. The only thing they can’t seem to control is her emotions and feelings that seem to be untamable.

Laura’s in love with the man who left her alone, but respects the man she’s with. The idea is that there are these 2 lives she could have had: she’s living one, and the other is with the man she truly loved. This new man forgave her, but the scent of the first man holds her memory, which is so lustful that you can almost imagine the sins that she constantly accuses herself of.

The song feels like another version of Sisyphus, but instead of a rock, there is this forever longing that plagues our singer, the hopeless romantic, of a life torn away from her due to war.

I learned this tune on guitar way back when and listened to it on repeat and have never gotten sick of it.

Song: Quand Je Marche by Camille

Performer: Camille

Composer: Camille Dalmais

Here’s one of my absolute favorite songs, it’s actually much longer than presented on Spotify, it’s normally 39 minutes, mostly of a drone that represents the album which is called “Le Fil” which means “the wire” or “the line” in this case it’s the through “line” this drone that’s meditative, this drone starts the album. But they cut it off on Spotify, because Spotify’s lame. The whole album is A Cappella except for a bass line. The bass line in the song is sick. The lyrics are so beautiful. Here’s the lyrics translated to English:

“When I walk, I walk.

When I sleep, I sleep.

When I sing, I sing

I let myself go

When I walk, I walk straight.

When I sing, I sing nude.

and when I love, I only love you.

When I think of you, I can’t sleep

Chorus

I’m here

I’m inside

I’m at the edge

I definitely won’t mock myself

‘Understand,’ you told me

’the world’s song.’ Hence, since then

When the sun rises, I am there

And when the night falls

I fall as well

Chorus

When I’m hungry, you nourish me

The howl of the dog, then the rain

When you leave, I wait here

I let myself go

And I forget you”

In the real song there’s an Easter egg at the very end of the drone in the album which is a huge payoff where Camille basically they said she couldn’t do an album like the one you just heard, but she says it’s false, it’s false.