It's been a while since we last covered French rap. Back in the mid-late 90s (sometimes referred to as the golden age of French hiphop) French producers outplayed most of their American counterparts in our view. With acts/producers such as DJ Kheops, IPM, La Cliqua, Double Pact and Sages Poètes de la Rue they brought something new to the game with minimalistic but hard boombap beats often with samples from non-traditional sources.
Rocca (La Cliqua) - Entre deux mondes
But as the millenium turned, many French acts followed their overseas collegues in a spiral of bling-bling mentality, stereotype lyrics and beats. There are of course exceptions like some of the spin-off projects from the TTC-crew, Abd Al Malik and OFX but for a quite a while our focus has been elsewhere. Until now.
If most acts (at least the once that got international recognition) earlier was based around Paris and Marseille now we got fresh sounds from all around the country. All those new encounters sparked us to kick off this new Beatheart's series entitled "The new French Movement". Enjoy!
#1. DON DA NONE (CAEN)
The other week we got sent this excellent debut EP from Caen based producer/rapper Don Da None (Damien Leguédois). With inspirations ranging from Steve Spacek and James Blake to Madlib and Tim Burton (!) he's put together an impressive first release with genre breaking productions and thoughtful lyrics.
The instrumentals off this seven track EP would fit in nicely in both Benji B and Gilles Peterson's playlists and would without doubt open up a new market for Damien's music. So in an effort to make that happen here's the track Le bas côtè instrumental available now as a Beathearts exclusive. Headphone beats at its best.
Download: Don Da None - Le bas côtè (Beathearts exclusive instrumental)
With a first effort as good as this we have high hopes for what's more to come from L'Hexagone in 2012. The Nébuleuse(s) EP is available now via Don Da None's Bandcamp.
|
|
0 reactions:
Post a Comment