Prolific rapper Eman returns with The power of the mind is infinite, a much lighter album than its title might suggest. This is what strikes you at first listen: Eman, the rhyme scientist within Alaclair Ensemble, the chameleon MC with acrobatic prosody, the explorer of the left bank of Quebec rap, bursts into a form more pop and more melodious while referring to the good club rap of the 2000s and current trends. “I was inspired by what my children listen to, what my nephew listens to”, the singer and rapper ISMA, who we discover on two songs. “I’ve always had pop in me, but I needed that: to simplify the music” to oppose it to the complexity of our existence.
Eman took up basketball, he tells us after raving about Stephen Curry’s performance in the final game of the playoff series between the victorious Golden State Warriors and the Sacramento Kings, during which he scored 50 points. “There’s this gymnasium that opened two years ago in [le quartier Vanier de Québec], ByFar, just to play basketball. My guys like to play, so I take them there. One of the guys said to me: “Ah, your children are motivated, huh? Then ask David if he wouldn’t agree to train them,” says Eman. David opens the gym doors to them earlier in the morning, just for them, “but on one condition, he told me: ‘You have to train with us.’ I don’t come from this sport — my wife, yes, she played and coached young people, it’s her sport. There, I learn the game for real. We do the drills, the positions, I sweat my life for an hour and a half! »
Sport, like rap, helps bring out the bad guy: “Humanly, I’ve had a hard time in recent years,” says Eman. Friend Karim Ouellet is hailed at the end of the album, on tender acoustic R&B sunshinewith the voices of MODLEE and Valérie Clio: “ The only fox I know is my drunk Karim / If you can keep an eye on my children / and my wife and my sisters and their children / And my mother and my father and their brothers and their sisters and their parents ah yeah long road ahead Eman raps.
“In the immediate family, I also saw big problems – of drug addiction in particular, exacerbated by the pandemic. I come from a special background… ”recalls the rapper, who opened up about his youth, not always harmonious, on the excellent album Joy (3XL), released in 2017, an album composed with the accomplice Vlooper. Today, “I have become the pillar of the family. The most stable of us”, the most disciplined, father, accomplished musician, solo or with friends, including those of Alaclair Ensemble. “I am the person we turn to,” adds Eman, who had to support several loved ones during the pandemic.
The power of the mind is infinite is Eman’s response to the past two years. “It’s special, but having been through really hard stuff just made me want to go home and feel good, and that goes through creating positive, bright music,” he explains. There are people who live things too heavy and who talk about it in their songs; I rather had the reflex to do the opposite”, to let oneself go in these grooves which are among the most danceable on which he put his rhymes.
The little drill button of Everywhere which opens the album is stunning. We believe we are dealing with a grumpy and cantankerous piece, it is rather a celebration of the cultural diversity of Quebec; the following two songs, Together And Eventuallyare as solar as the rest of the album, the soft and bouncy rhythms, Eman rapping with his ISMA, which appropriates Drake’s sung style with astonishing assurance.
I became a bit of a pillar of the family. The most stable of us. I am the person we turn to.
” He is sixteen years old ! His father is Anglo, from Little Burgundy, that’s why his English is so good. What I find amazing is his execution — when he was twelve or thirteen, I used to help him write a little, but afterwards I told him that he had to learn to do his homework himself. He did it. And its melodies! Pop-R&B reappears later on the album, in Your Love in particular (with singer Kevin Kevin), and the songs offer a pleasant counterweight to the slightly heavier titles like Safari Trapcollaboration with the English-Montreal rapper Jai Nitai Lotus — it should be noted in passing that the majority of the guests speak the language of Jay-Z, making this new album the most bilingual of Eman’s discography.
As well as the most family. This theme is recurrent in Eman’s work, but never as concrete as when he greets Karim, his colleagues from Accrocphone, Movèzerbe and Alaclair, or when he invites his nephew to his home studio to launch his career, or that he chooses one of beats that his eldest by nine years old tinkered with the computer himself to rap on it and make the song out of it Bed.
“He chose to call himself Joe Beats, because his name is Joseph; he made a beat a bit like Timbaland, with this drum sound. I was on tour at the time, my girlfriend called me to tell me that I had to listen to this when I got back. I arrived, I said: Hey! I just added bass — he tastes, he took a sound sample that he worked on, it’s really weird and it works. He co-wrote two beats on the album, I’m going to have to register it with SOCAN! It thrills me, at my age, to be able to pass on my passion. »