Yes Mccan became known within Dead Obies thanks to the remarkable album Montreal $udlaunched 10 years ago, and as the group moved to Everybody talks about itin 2016. Jean-François Ruel, his real name, became famous, in 2018, for his role in the series Runawaywhich has just been dropped on Netflix.
Despite past successes and his notoriety, the artist decided to reinvent himself under the name Yes*. It must be admitted that Lonely Hearts Club (CCS), first offering of its new identity, did not completely convince us.
Let’s start with the positive. First, the album opens in a beautiful way with the title track co-produced by High Klassified. Then the whole thing sounds very good. Almost entirely produced by nu_tone, CCS is precise and powerful. Jules Fradet’s mixing certainly has something to do with it. Some songs, including Rolling Stone And Big Pharma, on which we hear Hubert Lenoir and Prinzly, skillfully layer a multitude of sounds and should be electrifying in performance. We also like the transitions between songs, the interludes and the different sampled extracts.
The atmospheres of CCS are varied: trap (Many Men, Tiffany, Ten), retro pop à la The Weeknd (Poison, pulpy fiction), indie rock (Burn, Issue). The cohesion does not suffer too much, but the quality of the pieces is uneven. We feel the desire to please everyone, but we still have to master all these styles.
The point is the great weakness of CCS. Yes* writes quite well and delivers his rhymes skillfully – Magnum Freestyle is a good example. What he says, however, is generic and lacks authenticity. His stories of broken hearts may be real, but they seem more like a vapid translation of Drake’s. The famous Toronto MC’s ordinary misogyny is rarely criticized, with the result that it is imitated. So, Yes* is comfortable rapping “She’s a feminist, but she likes it when I slap her” on Tiffanyand several other similar lines throughout the 12 tracks.
He is far from being the only rapper to unashamedly throw out this type of phrase, but this speech does not fit at all with the promotional campaign which preceded the release of CCS. Yes*’s artistic approach seemed thoughtful and innovative, but the final product did not live up to the quality of its marketing.
Rap
Lonely Hearts Club
Yes*
Ground