“I hope it will tan people’s skin without them realizing it”

Every day, a personality invites itself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Monday March 18, 2024: author, composer and rapper, MC Solaar. After seven years without an album, he has just published the first part of “Triptyque: Celestial Lueurs”.

In 1990, Claude MC or MC Solaar was born as a rap artist at a time when this style was not very popular. Get out of here, his first single will have the effect of a bomb and flood the airwaves. The tube will be followed by Caroline or Who sows the wind, reaps the tempo. Today, MC Solaar is back with Triptych: Heavenly lights, a project which will include three discs of seven tracks.

franceinfo: With your unique flow, you juggle like a circus artist with words. Have words saved you?

MC Solaar: Yes, I can say they saved me. I remember that when we had to choose what we were going to do later, I had a few choices, I wanted to be a journalist, a baker, a footballer… And then there were these words that arrived, rap, hip -hop. I started to pick up a pen. And when I see 20 or 30 years later that my weapon was a pen and I find that life is still beautiful, well I can say that the 26 letters saved me!

“The 26 letters saved me, found me an escape, a window, found me something where I have pleasure every time I enter a studio.”

From your first titles, in particular, Get out of here, you have been totally adopted. It made it possible to offer, even in the cities, a note of hope. Does this affect you?

Yes, it really touched me. At the time, I often saw people sweeping the street and when they saw me, they wanted to say to their children: “There is someone like you, who is 1.78m tall and who I like, try to follow his stuff!“It’s true that I also said that you had to have the baccalaureate, work a little. And a parent is obliged to say: “Try to be like him“, but in fact it’s freeing yourself, to study a little or to be balanced.

In One runsyou sing : “I think I’ll tell you the truth, speak with sincerity, I was lost in the city, in the darkness, the darkness“. We feel the eyes of children who have not ultimately changed.

Indeed, I think I could have written it before. This text is intended for young people, it is advice so that they do not get burned here and there. Yes, I open up, I placed myself like an Indian, I tell my experiences, the places where you should not go. The goal is to end with light. My flow, I call it the Iroquois flow because I shoot as if they were arrows coming from a quiver. What I’m telling is a bit of an abstract painting. It’s not figurative, but there are things that happen that are good life advice for me. It’s like a tan sun. I hope it will tan people’s skin without them realizing it. And when they are adults, they will have a tanned complexion.

There is a form of appeasement too, even if you have always been very tender, very gentle with these nuances. We are no longer in the era of Prose combat.

“We are no longer in the era of ‘Prose combat’ because society has evolved tremendously.”

When we were writing at the time, we had references from Americans who were emerging from the fight for civil rights and therefore their rap was about changing society. Then we got to Obama. There are lots of things changing and American rap is changing. These are other problems. Here, when we started writing, there was still Apartheid, we started to dance a little and it’s true that there are not the same issues. On the other hand, if in the future there are social issues, perhaps young people in their area, in Savoie, in Seine-Saint-Denis or anywhere, will perhaps pick up the pen and say : “There is something that should evolve“.

I would like to discuss the chef’s surprise. For the first time, you sing on this album, it’s incredible. With Carpe Diemdid you discover yourself through singing?

Ah, I like it when I listen to it. In fact, I composed it with someone who is not like that at all but who offered me this kind of music which was a little ethereal. Then when I listened to it again a little later, I said to myself: “But it’s great!” Well, I’m not Céline Dion, but I let go naturally. I actually like this song because it speaks simply. There aren’t too many demonstrative words.

“With ‘Carpe Diem’, some will say to themselves: ‘Damn, he sings well’ and others: What he sings badly’, but for me in any case, that makes me feel good. It’s spontaneous, natural.”

So, what’s next? There, there is the first, two are missing. When will they arrive?

In no time. We will try to do like the cycle of the seasons. In a few months, there will be a sequel, in about three months, maybe sooner.

But there are four seasons and you, three discs, one season is missing!

There will perhaps be a fourth, because every time I come home from a concert, I don’t hesitate to go to a studio the same day.

Watch this interview on video: