Does Orelsan deserve the Victoires de la musique?3 reading minutes

News Mondays - Jonas Follonier

Aurélien Cotentin, now Orelsan (composed of «Orel » for Aurélien, and «hisn», a Japanese suffix used orally as a mark of cordiality), has won back the French-speaking public and press. To say the least. Once marginalized for the violence of his lyrics, the French rapper has made a spectacular comeback in the public eye, initiated by Le Chant des sirènes released in 2011 and confirmed by his new album, The party's over.

The press as a whole, which had already hailed «the maturity » the «new Orelsan », didn't hide his enthusiasm and admiration when the thirty-year-old was awarded a triplet at the thirty-third Victoires de la Musique ceremony, this Friday, February 9, 2018. We rejoiced in unison at a real consecration for the Norman artist, but also for the world of rap and hip-hop in general, which is finally getting its rightful place in the world of French-language music, namely the top spot.

Are these awards deserved?

One question, though: Does Orelsan deserve the three Victoires de la musique awards he received for best audiovisual creation, best urban music album and best male artist? This is not to call into question the popularity of a genre that is not to our taste, but to question the unanimity of the critics. Do they really claim to find in Orelsan an artistic quality, particularly musical, that surpasses the other artists in the running, such as Bernard Lavilliers?

It's really hard to sustain such nonsense. Orelsan has a certain talent, and we can acknowledge that without too much difficulty; but it's a long way from putting the rapper at the top of the music scene. Listen to the album, All's well sounds like a song made as smooth as possible to attract a heterogeneous audience and, why not, win a Victoire de la musique award. Now he's been rewarded. All's well.

Basic, the first single released on September 20, 2017 to announce the album's release, reminds us of a fundamental, a basic fact: rap is a minor art. His lyrics, simplistic in the extreme but rooted in an urban reality that is very much there, certainly correspond to the expectations of a whole category of people. There's nothing wrong with that. But why should we consider rap to be the new French chanson, or even the new French music? summum of what's happening in music today? Have music critics gone mad?

It's doubtful that we can even talk about music criticism when we're dealing with an artist who shows no musical innovation whatsoever and who, let's not forget, is the author of these phrases: «Je vais te mettre en cloque et t'avorter à l'opinel» ("I'm going to knock you up and abort you with an opinel").Dirty whore, 2009), «I left those bitches on the side of the road / I'm the one who should have doubts because you fuck them all. » (Paradise, 2017) Can we really celebrate the fact that it's now this kind of verse that dad, mom and their young daughter sing along to, in a packed house at the Arena?

Some good points

It's not all doom and gloom, far from it. As we said, Orelsan has a certain talent. The clips of both single are real successes. And in his interpretation of San Friday at the Victoires de la Musique, there's obviously something going on. Some fine flashes of brilliance, including : «I'm getting used to the idea of never getting better »or «It took me half my life to figure out what I want. »And a soul, a certain power of expression that seems to spring from the artist. But that's not enough to win the Victoires.

More and more, cultural journalists seem to feel vested with a mission: to embrace social change and legitimize, through their authority, everything that is marginal, irreverent, contentious, a world away from our common references defining what is beautiful and what is art. Isn't there a paradox in this holy alliance between medal-givers and artists who provoke and question, as if this attitude alone were a guarantee of quality? Isn't the provocateur there precisely to not to be worshipped ? «The party's over», says Orelsan. One thing is certain: the French chanson party is well and truly over.

Write to the author : jonas.follonier@leregardlibre.com

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons,CC BY 2.0