dendrophile, Movezerbe (Districk Music, 2009)
We first heard Karim Ouellet with rappers Les 2 Toms, Showme from Limoilou Starz and Stratège from Architekts, but it was within the kaleidoscopic collective Movèzerbe that he revealed himself musically. Mixing rap, soul, funk, reggae and pop, dendrophile, the project’s only album, breaks down the boundaries between genres, as Karim will do on his own. Above all, the collective – which included Boogat and the hard core of Alaclair Ensemble in its ranks – was a spark plug for the independent music scene in the capital, which is now radiant.
The monster, taken from Feather (Coyote Records, 2011)
First appeared on her debut EP Strange Love Lessons (2009), the song The monster was re-recorded, with the care of accomplice Claude Bégin, for his first album Feather. The rapped verses of the first version find a more natural musicality on this one, visionarily proving that rap can also be good pop, and vice versa. “If there’s a monster under my bed I won’t sleep / I’ll take it by the horns and make a meal of it […] Do not wake him up, my skeleton in the closet, my forgotten / Change this world, a little music”. In The monster There is also hidden the major theme of Karim’s work: recognizing first what frightens us, then having the courage to face it.
love, taken from fox (Abuzive Muzik, 2012)
The success of the summer of 2013, which appeared on his second album launched the previous winter, earned him the Félix-Leclerc Song Prize and opened the doors to French-speaking Europe, which he toured with Matthieu Chedid. (M) and Stromae. love changed his life and marked ours: the rhythm, the melody, the smile in his voice, for one of the most optimistic texts in his repertoire. It is perhaps no coincidence that this song was his greatest popular success.
love is a monster (feat. Karim Ouellet), Misteur Valaire (single, 2014)
The monster again! The Valaire group can thank Karim for having transformed their electronic pop groove into a nice radio hit. It was one of the strengths of the late musician: to put his unique flavor in each of his collaborations, as with Marième (I love you, 2011), Webster (on two different albums), Loud X Lary X Ajust (memorable Autumn, 2014) or even Fanny Bloom (Our Hearts, 2018). On two occasions, he will share the studio with his sister Sarahmée, to December (2012, the French version then featured Orelsan) and To let down (2015).
Karim and the wolf, taken from Thirty (2016, Coyote Records)
The bass line trots along behind the dry sounds of the funk drums when Karim rushes forward: “I’m writing this to you on the edge of the abyss / They say that we come out of it stronger when we suffer / When we put salt on our wounds / Witness be heaven to me, what an adventure! The text is dark, but this music is a party. Karim Ouellet had this gift of soothing us with his pure and playful voice, even to sing, on a catchy melody, a candid and cruel refrain: “We are in the mouth of the wolf / As the man is a wolf for the man / Man is a wolf to us”.
Aikido (2016, Coyote Records)
October 2016. Seven months after the release of Thirty, Karim launches this masterpiece in four “chapters” accompanied by a preface and an epilogue. Poignant, as fresh today as when it was released, this EP released in the wake of a famous record offers a summary of the talent of the superb melodist, to be heard as the sum of his musical referents. And again, like a lifeline, emerges from these troubled texts the hope to which we must cling. Karim sang for us as he sang to himself: “Another effort, everything will be fine” he repeats in the chorus of Chapter 1.