Six years in a man’s life is a long time; in that of the Quebec rap scene, it’s a revolution. Rapper Manu Militari chose when hip-hop peaks in our music scene to break the silence with New wave, a fifth career album for someone who had not ventured into the studio since 2015. Supported by the contemporary productions of Benny Adam (La Zarra, Souldia) and Gary Wide (Imposs, Sarahmée), the methodical MC returns with his pen sharp and “its punchlines legendary like the Dubois brothers ”, he rapped on the title song.
Why this pause, why this return after six years of silence? “Honestly, I do not know what to answer you, admits Manu Militari. It may sound cliché, but the answer I give myself is: I worked a lot for years. Twelve hours a day. My life was focused on work. I have a young family that I didn’t see much of. When I released my last record, I was in a fairly comfortable situation, and I felt less inclined to make music. I especially wanted to take time with my family, which I did. Isn’t that the goal in life to be happy? “
It’s reassuring to hear him say it. Manu, know it, raps little about happiness, if not on exceptions such as the beauties Revelation Where Rio de Janeiro of the new album, song inspired by the stays in Brazil of this seasoned traveler, the most recent dating back to last winter, so to escape with his family the depression of confinement. Thus, it would be unfair to present him as the chronicler of human misery that several of his songs suggest since at the turn of a harsh or murky scene often looms a fighter character – against society, against his fate, against the injustices, but a fighter all the same, proud despite everything. Again, on New wave, Manu bites without losing hope.
This is even the case on two songs featuring Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (Whoever dies, dies in pain and Hochelaga) for decoration, a gesture that exposes him to criticism, he immediately recognizes, he who rather grew up in Côte-des-Neiges, in a context which explains his paradoxical relationship to money and, consequently, the look he has on society in his texts. “Money, I missed a lot in my childhood. I have known the Hydro and Bell cuts, owing money to all the grocery stores in the neighborhood. However, I do not miss it today. I live comfortably, but money is a race: the more you want, the more you have, the more you’re afraid of running out. “
Hochelag ‘, therefore: “I know that it is not done – in quotation marks – to speak about another district, but hey, I was tempted to do it. I lived in the Center-Sud; it’s not Hochelaga, but a bit of the same culture, and I spent a lot of time there. For me, it’s a mythical neighborhood in Montreal, it’s the story of the guy who starts from below and wants to go to topwhether it’s Maurice Richard or Mom Boucher, it’s almost romantic. […] Afterwards, I think I have the credibility to do songs about this neighborhood. Besides, it won’t be the first time I’ve done a potentially controversial personification, let’s say? »He said evoking the hubbub around the music video of his song Waiting, which featured an attack on a Canadian military convoy in Afghanistan.
From the release of his first album, Voice of fact, in 2006, the pugnacious rapper imposed his raw rap-truth style, delivered with his prosody of exemplary clarity. The rhythms of his new album may at times have the luster of trap productions in vogue in 2021, the musician has remained faithful to his style. “Even that my interpretation is more physical on this album, which brings me closer [de l’énergie] of Voice of Facts, he comments. In the sense that I feel like I’ve taken more control of the beat. Without wanting to deny my previous album, I think I was then more “literary”, the text taking even more space. There, I feel that I have a better balance between the flow and the text – that doesn’t mean the tunes are better, but there is that difference. “
“MANU nothing rigorous / There’s not a whore who makes me live, chu not a gigolo / My outspokenness will never fill the Bell Center / Chu not too Fr Anglais, chu more Jacques Brel”, balance-t- he still on the chorus of New wave. We immediately detect the valve sent in the direction of Loud. “A valve, yes … It’s not very bad”, defuses Manu Militari, who learned, through Benny Adam, that Loud had found it funny. “I can’t pretend he doesn’t exist!” »He adds, recognizing in the same breath how much the rap scene, ours in particular, had evolved since the release of his previous album, Ocean, six years ago.
“Yes, the scene has changed a lot. There are a lot more players today. When I arrived on the scene I felt alone in the world, the other rappers were still very underground », Feeling expressed, not without nostalgia, on the dancing girl Van Gogh. “Today, artists come with a story, a credibility on the street, and there are many of them. Aesthetically, the genre has also become very fragmented. At the time, there was a certain purist sound. I was proud of Voice of Facts because I had respected all the codes, all the rules of hip-hop. That, like what came before with my group Rime Organisée, was for me the foundation of everything that followed. “
New wave is expected by rap aficionados. He will be listened to, studied, dissected, as one should do for a veteran of his caliber. “Veteran? I don’t really like the word. We don’t like to get old, do we? “