A case for Stromae

Racine Carée (“Squared Root” in French) is the most recent album by Belgian musical performer Stromae. Released in August 2013, Racine Carrée took Europe by storm, quickly jumping to the top of the charts in Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands. Students who’ve studied abroad since the album’s release are sure to have heard hit singles like “Papaoutai” (Papa, where are you?) and “Tous les mêmes” (All the same) in clubs and on the radio. In the United States the album has not had as strong of a presence, most likely due to its exclusively French lyrics. However, he has done multiple remixes with English-speaking performers like Kanye West, Will.I.Am and Angel Haze. This summer, however, he’s going coast to coast on the American leg of his international tour.

The album title Racine Carrée alludes to his dual background: his father was a black Rwandan and his mother a white Belgian. Stromae, whose real name is Paul van Haver, grew up in and around Brussels, Belgium with his mother and four siblings. His father left the family and returned to Rwanda when Stromae was a small child and was killed there during the genocide in 1994. Stromae grew up in and around Brussels, Belgium with only his mother and four siblings.

Stromae started rapping in high school, and did a brief stint in film school before moving full-time into the music industry with a small rap group. He quickly gained notoriety as a solo artist with his hit single “Alors on danse” (So we dance) off his first album in 2010, Cheese.

Stromae comes from the inversion of the word “Maestro.” This inversion is a historic linguistic practice in French, but is most common among French youth who call it Verlan, which is itself the inversion of “L’envers” (Inverse).

Stromae also has also utilized YouTube since his early career to give his fans a look inside his creative process. These short “lessons” are sort of experimental self-interviews, and often quite humorous or absurd. But Stromae reveals more than just his silly personality. He also goes through the technical process of making beats and melodies for his songs, often solely with his laptop. These videos have garnered millions of views and, much to the joy of his fans, he performs some “live lessons” during his concerts. He calls himself not a musician but an “interprète” (performer), meaning he puts as much work into the planning of his live shows as his time in the recording studio.

There are a few notable tracks off of the album that you’ll be sure to hear at his concerts or maybe even on the radio:

“Moules Frites” (Mussels and Fries) has tons of play-on-words about this “national dish of Belgium.” If there is one reason to learn French, it is to understand the extended metaphor of cunnilingus hidden in this song. The refrain goes “Paulo aime les moules frites, sans frites et sans mayo” (Paulo likes mussels and fries, without fries and without mayo.) While this might sound benign, after you understand that “moules” is a French euphemism for vagina, and “mayo” is a hominem of the French word for bathing suit, the hidden naughtiness is revealed. This tone continues with lines such as: “Avant qu’il passe à table, il boit toujours un verre de blanc, pour oublier l’exécrable, sûr, et si âcre goût de l’océan.” (Before he eats his mussels and fries, he always drinks a glass of white wine, to forget the appalling, certain, acrid taste of the ocean). While showcasing Stromae’s lyricism, the song still highlights his penchant for political themes as it takes a tonal turn at the end with Paulo’s untimely death caused by an STD.

“Tous les mêmes” (All the same) is sung from the perspective of a woman. She decries the typical faults of men like their “macho” bravado and their habit of leaving when things get tough. This latter sentiment is expressed through lyrics like “Rendez-vous sûrement aux prochaines règles” (Show up during my next period), and “Tu sais la vie, c’est les enfants…oui pour les faire là tu es présent mais pour les éléver il y aurait des absents” (You know life is about children…yes to make them you are present, but to raise them you are absent). When this song is performed on stage, Stromae actually takes on the dual persona of a man and woman, with a big hair piece on one side.

“Formidable” (Fantastic) is a story about a break up, sung from the perspective of a drunk man on a street. In the song he drunkenly tries to explain relationships to a child he meets on the road with the classic line of “If mom is being an ass it’s because she’s afraid of being a mom, and if dad cheats on mom, it’s because mom’s getting older.” He performs this song live as if drunk, and also did a hidden camera video on the streets of Brussels where he stumbles in front of trolleys and even gets stopped by the police (who say they’re fans and offer to take him home).

His music is almost completely electronic, with lots of fast, steady melodies full of bass. Unlike most of the other mainstream pop performers, his topics go much deeper than general topics such as love or women. He focuses on issues closely related to his childhood, such as abandonment, racism and disenfranchisement. While he does utilize long refrains, these act as a sort of dance break to the clever verses on songs like “Humain à l’eau” (Human in water) and “Formidable” (Terrific). In fact all of the songs on Racine Carrée have something unique. Because the translations lose the rhyme and meter, most of the cleverness and aesthetic are lost to the Anglophone listener. But having just performed last week at SXSW and performances scheduled this summer at Bonnaroo, as well as in Los Angeles, Boston, New York and Miami, Stromae may become the next big artist in North America.