Customer Reviews
Excellent Solaar...if a little dark - By: Mr. Cht Potter, 31 Mar 2007 
Solaar gets it all off his chestin this album. Social injustice, American gun crime, the slave trade, French urban poverty (those living under the 'seuil' (threshold) relying on the inadequate RMI (Revenu Minimum d'Insertion), a kind of minimum wage for the young unemployed are amongst his primary areas of concern. Despite all this, he does not preach, he does not parade as the Messiah but he DOES bring across important messages without any detriental effects either to the lyrics (which waiver between poignant & strikingly brilliant - for instance these lines from the modern French urban lovestory of the stunner & the gangster:
'Mais entre eux, c'était toujours complicité
Escale sur un piédestal, un reve délimité
S'il devenait triangle, elle serait rectangle').
One great advantage that MC Solaar has over his French 'rivals' (there aren't many serious contenders besides maybe IAM AND SSC to the hip-hop/rap crown) is his sonoric diversity. The album starts off with the very powerful, explicit & Satanic 'Solaar pleure' & the srcathcy, street-wise sound of 'Leve-toi et rap' (which boasts perhaps the best lyric of the album & describes Solaar's development through childhood & youth), digressesin the middle with one epic love song (La belle et le bad boy) & one cornier effort that is reminiscent of a few of Tupac's urban ballads & then Solaar shares his social concerns with us ('Degats Collateraux', 'RMI' & 'C'est ca que les gens veulent'. The album ends with 2 very catchy songs of very different ilkin 'Cinquieme As' & 'Si Je Meurs Ce Soir', the former being somewhat of a lyrical & melodical ego trip with the latter very reminiscent of track 2in a sort of dark, higher-being, external forces manner. In terms of sounds, this is as eclectic as Mach 6 as Claude M'Barali (real name) bounces between pop, raps, hip-hop, African choirs, Spanish guitar & orchestral string & wind. I would thoroughly recommend this album (both as an insight into the man's genius & modern French society (given the recent riotingin French cities & the relative success of the extreme right).
Best tracks - Hasta la Vista Mi Amor!, Belle et le Bad Boy, Lève-Toi et Rap, La la, La, C'Est Ça Que Les Gens Veulent, Si Je Meurs Ce Soir - Black Jack, MC Solaar, Homme Qui Voulait Trois Milliards - Bambi Cruz, MC Solaar
Weak tracks - Hiphopaloorap, Baby Love, Playmate
Solaar Weaps, maybe not - By: DL Productions UK, 06 Oct 2003 MC Solaar is well known to France as 50 Cent is known to ths US, he's had hit singlesin the UK, France, Germany & as far afield as Japan. So what's getting people to buy French rap? The fact that Solaar is a peaceful rapper, he deosn't speak badly of women, he doesn't talk about shooting the police, he doesn't mention unecessary violence, & he's poetical. He knows how to use French verbs so effectively it's incredible. His speed isn't blistering too, not like some of the rappers out there who you can't understand. Cinqueme As is his 5th studio album, which I feel is pretty impressive.
It all kicks off with the angelic tainted "Solaar Pleur", which to me isn't his best. I really don't like this title, it's just so annoying to me. The rapping is good, but the whole mood just seems to go against Solaar's grain. He's just so angry & swears like it wasin fashon. It's just not my style.
I especially like "Leve toi et rap", which is an excellent piece of hip hop; Solaar rapping about how he got up & took the micin his mid teens. It's also about late 80s Paris, grafitti, b-boys & hip hop nights. It's quite well put together, & the samples are excellent, Gangstarr announcing "MC Solaar", one of my favourites on the album.
Another I really like is Colonies, an excellent tale of how Africa had a lot of French colonies.
Another great has to be Hasta La Vista, Solaar a l'Espagnol, which is pretty cool. If you have the UK release, it's actually a Spanish version, which I also loved. This is a tale of a loverin Spain, which is poetically put together by Claude MC.
Other great features on here has to be la belle et le bad boy, a parody of Beauty & the Beast, but of course, 00's style. The bad boy robs cars, mopeds & other stuff, while the girl is beautiful, & the bad boy wants her.
La la la reminds me a bit of his 1998 hit "Les Temps Changent", it's cheerful, yet a bit silly & comical.
Akansas is quite a serious track with serious vocals, about a kid who gets a gun for Christmas & shoots bottles, but one day he decides to shoot someone. Solaar is trying to say if you get your child a gun, he might well get a real onein the future, so don't encourage guns.
Another of my favourites includes RMI, all about income support - telling us a lot of people expect it & don't get much to live on. You'd have to understand French Social Security rules to understand this.
Other favourites include Hiphopaloorap, which is a pretty cool piece of hip hop; Cinqueme As, which I find quite rather patronising of Solaar to make himself sound like he's god; & Playmate, which is an excellent love song about a girl who goes after rich men who only want to fool around, & not have a proper relation. The girl is left with a baby, & takes the TGV to get away from him.
Solaar has done a lot of colaborations on here, 9Respect & Don Xeré Delavega, & now, Bambi Crutz, who is well knownin Solaar's discography. This is because he'sin the Cinq Cent One Posse, which Solaar hangs in. Homme Qui Voulait Trois Milliards is the tale of a man who wanted cash fast, & did a robbery. It's a parody though, because MC Solaar makes a joke of it by saying "MC Solaar is behind the counter, how can I help?". Excellent track.
Finally, Si Je Meurs Ce Soir, which is a song about if he dies tonight, which reminds me of something 2Pac would do. Very cool & laid back, great vocals, but a bit too G Funk. The strange thing is, it's got 4mins of silence, then Samedi Soir comes on, a song about Saturday nights, when he used to get high & wander the streets.
Altogether it's an excellent album - DJ Sample, DJ Mac & Black Rose are all unknown, but they've done a sterling job on production. Their production level is at the same as Pigale Boom Bass, with hints of Jimmy Jay, which is excellent. The only thing I hate about this album is Solaar Pleur, just can't get into that song. The enhanced stuff on here's a joke too, Opendisc is all that's on it, which signs you up to a mailinglist & lets you see "extras", which isn't really that exciting. Altogether, an excellent album with excellent production values, 4/5 just because of Solaar Pleur.
