Review Summary: Blacky Chan mawashi gerin' the French rap game
Before releasing
Une Main Lave l'Autre (we'll shorten that to UMLA now shall we), Alpha Wann (his real name, an anomaly in the French rap industry) aka Arnold Schwarzen-word aka Philly Flingue aka Le Don was a rapper everyone in the French-speaking world considered extremely strong. But he was missing a reference project with striking pieces people will remember. Nowadays, almost everyone is unanimous: the stage is crossed with a record registered in its time which will quickly become a reference for French rap admirers. Let's go back in time to understand why this album is deemed important for a nation that likes to call itself "the second country of rap".
The year is 2011. French rap hardly comes out of the 2000s, a decade marked by a global lack of creativity, where some outstanding figures managed to sell many records (
Booba, Sinik, Rohff) playing the gangsta card without having the authenticity the genre requires. In addition, tons of genuine wordsmiths (Nubi or Salif) attained only a very mild commercial success, having to be satisfied with a - gotta say, completely sterile – limited appreciation of some journalists. Inauthenticity was therefore the cancer of a scene living only for the money and failing to reward what made it great during its 90s golden era.
In these circumstances, a boom bap revival led by mostly adolescent figures took the genre by surprise in the early 2010s. These newcomers, whose most famous and significant representative was the Parisian group 1995, were influenced by the mid-to-end 90s golden age of the genre such as
IAM or Les Sages Poètes de la Rue (
The Wise Street Poets). 1995 was important in many ways: some of its members went on to successful careers (
Nekfeu, Sneazzy to a certain degree, and Alpha Wann himself) and virtually every young person in French-speaking countries has at the very least heard of them. Still, lots of these rookies were too green at the time, and it resulted in albums with as many qualities - respect for the genre and positive messages - as flaws - an innocence leaning too much towards lyrical naivety, and an intensive reliance on old beats without bringing anything new to the table. Yet, they gathered sufficient recognition from boomers no longer recognizing themselves in the scene that rocked their adolescence to young people enjoying both the boom bap aesthetic and the relatable youth of these newbies. Some of the leaders from the early 2010s went on to total success like Nekfeu, while Alpha Wann would have to wait to take down the stars.
Not considering himself ready for the perilous stage of the first LP, Alpha concentrated on collective projects from 2011 to 2014 (with the groups 1995 and
L'Entourage) before releasing three solo EPs from 2014 to 2018. Said EPs were varying from advanced freestyle to songs that were mostly displaying how technically impressive Alpha could be, without any of these projects being considered as anything other than sheer preparation for the first album. Alpha wanted to save the best version of himself for his biggest statement. He had evolved without accepting the slightest concession, not to modernity, but to fashion.
Because first of all, and most importantly, UMLA is an album that strips away commercial ornaments to deliver rap in its purest form: no choruses, no hit tracks, but instead just a neverending cascade of hard-hitting bars. Every word written is there to respect French language and the many stylistic devices adopted to play with words. Mastering multi-syllabics, which he helped democratize as the norm in the early 2010s, he places particular emphasis on filling his lines with ringing words in order to provide a continuous flow between each sentences. Also playing with assonances, alliterations and homophones among other figures of rhetorical style, Alpha attaches great importance in varying his technique, rhyming schemes and flows so that the whole thing does not turn out to be a pointless series of tasteless rhymes.
It is true technicality is a quality, but by itself it is just a trophy collecting dust on a shelf. Having understood the criticisms levelled at him, Alpha Wann makes sure to dress his word salads with societal comments dealing as much with his condition as a young black man in a country governed by white people as with the difficulty of French suburbs (
cités) to live at the same pace as the rest of the population. When he throws a punchline, it's within the context of the complicated rhyming schemes he imposes himself.
In addition, he's revealing himself for the first time. Alpha talks about the alienation the status of the best rapper who never made it - and who never will - brings him, besides distilling a few details about his life here and there without it ever taking precedence over his rapological technique. In the end, this is not the aim of the record: rather, he paints a nuanced portrait of himself, sailing between egotrip and introspection without ever mooring the boat of his rhymes in either port.
This boxing with words would however be nothing without the adequate beats. Having surrounded himself with beatmakers close to him such as his Don Dada label cofounder, Hologram ‘Lo, he instructed them to deliver modern but refined productions. None of the instrumentals are there to make people dance: they are there to accompany the flow of its rhymes. Dictating this aesthetic, vocal delivery no longer chases after the beat: it dictates the rhythm and cadence itself.
These spare beats, as well as an uncompromising love of technique, make UMLA an impossible commercial object. Alpha's vision is indeed driven by art instead of financial matters. There are no heady choruses, since it would compromise his ongoing search to prove he is the best rapper in Gérard Depardieu's homeland. He even refused the verse that Nekfeu had made for the album, considering that it didn't fit the song's tone, even though Nek was, and still is, one of the highest-selling artists in the French rap game. Instead, he chose to surround himself with little-known friends, cementing this work in the pantheon of the biggest losers. This extreme artistic vision had the expected reception: critical praise and indie journalists' esteem but very little commercial success. In a sense, he considers himself a worthy heir to his heroes: the losers of the previous generation (Fabe or Dany Dan).
As a matter of fact, French rap is thriving nowadays, and some talk about the second golden age of the genre. One must remember a golden age is not necessarily defined by contemporary critical success. However, it is almost always defined by great commercial success. Many of today's rappers are softening their formula, offering increasingly catchy choruses and getting closer to modern French song day after day. No problem with that trend, but Alpha went completely against the grain and decided to give a modern version of a once glorified French rap.
As the rapper himself says in the course of the record,
very unlikely I'll hit a platinum, I have to craft a classic. Time will tell if people will still listen to UMLA 20 years from now. Until then, it deeply marked the French hip hop landscape with its almost suicidal desire to restore rap to its glory. Respectful and respected, Alpha Wann has released the best French rap album of its decade. Une Main Lave l'Autre, mais elles se joignent pour laver le visage.
