by David Wilikofsky
When you think about iconic rappers, who comes to mind? Originators like Grandmaster Flash? Innovators like Public Enemy? More recent stars like Kanye? Wherever your mind may go, I’m willing to bet on one thing: your list will be resoundingly American, or at the very least English speaking. Though rap’s origins may be in New York City, the genre has been traveling the world for decades. Today we’re talking about what some consider to be ground zero for French hip hop: MC Solaar’s Qui Sème le Vent Récolte le Tempo.
The history of French hip hop actually begins long before MC Solaar appeared on the scene. In 1982, Bernard Zekri, a French journalist living in New York, helped organize The New York City Rap Tour. A showcase of New York DJs, rappers, graffiti artists and breakdancers that travelled through France, it is credited as the first tour of its kind to a non-American audience and for planting the seeds of French hip hop. The following decade saw the genre developing locally in fits and starts; proper equipment was hard to come by, and many practitioners were more interested in emulating American sounds rather than developing a distinctive local aesthetic.
MC Solaar was born Claude M’Barali in Dakar, Senegal, moving six months later to the suburbs of Paris. At the age of twelve he moved in with his uncle in Cairo, Egypt for nine months; there he got his first exposure to rap via the music of Afrika Bambaataa, becoming fascinated with the genre. He returned to France and finished his schooling, eventually moving to Paris to pursue musical success. It came quickly; his first single, “Bouge De Là”, was a hit, and he soon followed that up with a debut album.
That album, Qui Sème le Vent Récolte le Tempo is both adventurous and focused. While you can certainly hear the influence of American rap on the production (at points it sounds like a jazzier, more mellow version of contemporary sounds across the Atlantic), more often than not it’s an album that tries to meld new sounds with rap’s sonic tropes. Take the production of “Armand Est Mort” or “Caroline”, which seem to predict the trip hop sound that Tricky would perfect four years later, or the dancehall-esque “Ragga Jam”: both sound distinct from American sounds. Solaar is the glue that holds everything together amidst the musical experimentation, whether he’s skating over the languid beats of “Victime De La Mode” or spitting rapid fire bars on “Quartier Nord”. He sounds absolutely effortless throughout, constantly switching up his flow to match the backing track. It’s a performance whose sheer ease that brings to mind another all time favorite, Big L on Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous.
It’s unfortunate that I haven’t been able to find good translations of Solaar’s lyrics; by all accounts he is a master wordsmith who isn’t afraid to be political. In his mind, those two things go hand in hand. In an interview from 1994, he talks about how his mastery of language enables him to be candidly political and be taken seriously: “I needed to do something, so they don’t look at the color but the artistic way of (what) I am doing. This way I can say there are things that are not good in the country. If it is well done, you don’t know what you look at first, the color or the way that it is written. Is it the artist? Or the color? That’s how I do it.”
And heard he was: at the time of its release, Qui Sème le Vent Récolte le Tempo was a breakthrough album, the most successful French rap record to that date. It sold over four hundred thousand copies, making Solaar a star who toured far and wide on its success. He worked with Gang Starr’s Guru and opened for De La Soul. He’s gone on to have a long career in music, still making records into the 2010s. But perhaps most importantly, he (and this album) helped establish what would become the second largest rap market in the world. I’m still exploring the world of French hip hop, but I know this much: if the music is even half as good as what Solaar puts up here, it’s well worth my time.