It’s a song that resembles us. Stromae, all the arts intertwined

Stromae interweaves the seductions of rap, electronic dance music and a Belgian-Breton song tradition with a singular talent as a stylist and director of his own image.

In partnership with the exhibition It’s a song that resembles us – Worldwide hits of French-language popular music At the Cité internationale de la langue française in Villers-Cotterêts, these chronicles look in detail at each of the stories presented there.

Ever since popular music has crossed borders, that is, ever since borders have existed, we have been willing to ask ourselves the question of universality. Whether we are a music producer, journalist, artist or simply a listener who wonders why we can be moved to tears by a song in a language other than our own. And sometimes, this universality imposes itself even though everything is there for a song to remain rooted in a single language and therefore in a single cultural era. Obviously, Stromae did not ask himself the question in these terms when he wrote Papaoutai.

His father, a Rwandan architect, left five children, including Paul, the future Stromae, with their mother in Belgium. In total, the little boy would only see his father about twenty times in his life. His father had been missing for a few years when we learned that he had been killed with most of his family in the Rwandan genocide. His mixed race, his childhood in a single-parent family, his orphanhood, all point to his father’s absence. A structuring absence for a young man who first tried his hand at conventional rap, from which he would keep the name Stromae, and at multiple artistic adventures. He studied music theory, drums, cinema, sound engineering, spent some time programming music for an FM radio, collaborated as a producer and composer with rapper Kery James or singer Anggun, a hyperactive patient. When he released his first single, it was inevitably a big hit.

In this episode of This song reminds me of usyou hear excerpts from:

Stromae, Papaoutai, 2013

Stromae, Then we dance, 2009

Stromae, Papaoutai, 2013

Stromae, Tremendous, 2013

Stromae, Papaoutai, 2013

You can also extend this column with the book This song reminds me of us published by Heritage Publishing.

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