This Friday morning, Booba was in top trend on Twitter ... For refusing to debate Thursday evening with Jean Messiha, member of the National Gathering, and having made him leave the TPMP plateau.
Even Jean-Luc Mélenchon applauded this "resistance to outrage".
#TPMP: @booba pushes back the Jean Messiha debate.
Well done !
It just goes to show that resistance to outrage sometimes involves the rejection of a columnist ... I say that I say nothing.
- Jean-Luc Mélenchon (@JLMelenchon) March 5, 2021
But curiously, we commented much less on the main news of the rapper: the release at midnight of his tenth and last album, "Ultra".
At 44 and after 26 years of career, the puncher decided to hang up the gloves.
Invited Wednesday on the set of “C tonight”, Booba believes that “you have to know how to stop in time, like Master Yoda”, of which he sports a tattoo.
“I have had my time,” he adds.
It's already amazing to make ten number one albums.
But I don't stop the music.
I will continue to do
feat
(Editor's note: appearances on other people's albums)
, produce artists and I am co-writing a series in which I will have a small role.
He also dreams of going on stage one last time, "at the Parc des Princes", near where he grew up under the name of Elie Yaffa, a French mother and Senegalese father.
"Generation Ken the Survivor"
In the meantime, what is this "Ultra" worth and what does it say?
It is a short album, fourteen tracks which do not exceed 3 minutes each.
A farewell album that looks like a balance sheet, with some references to its success.
"Generation Ken the survivor / German sedan / Re-entered by the kid / Finished / I got out by the big one", he writes in the first headline, "GP".
Or “Veni Vidi Vici” - “I came, I saw, I conquered” - and “She wants me to make her a little / She wants a king, my DNA”.
#MONALISA @jsxgrizilygang 🏴☠️ video >>> https://t.co/udzRyg7ze8 🔥 title available on all platforms >>> https://t.co/Q5EgaElcNk#ULTRA available at midnight pic.twitter.com/ FTZ0SOskhm
- Booba (@booba) March 4, 2021
In his last album, this brawler, whose airport brawl with Kaaris in 2018 almost cost him prison, had to unleash ultimate provocations.
"Poor Marie was a virgin / I snapped her pussy" and "I know who I am / I'm not Kouachi / I'm not Charlie" - an admission he had already made to the Parisian in 2015 after the Charlie Hebdo attacks - will not fail to react.
He also scratches the Victoires de la Musique who have ignored him so much, but remains far from the clashes of which he is customary and which have notably earned him being banned from Instagram.
He says it himself: "The hagra
(Editor's note: looking for a quarrel)
, it doesn't pay off".
There is always a touch of humor - "as long as I load I look left to right like a meerkat" - but little "hardcore" talk.
The general atmosphere is melancholy, in texts such as music, slow, bare, dominated by the piano and the guitar.
"Humble in my arrogance", he calls himself "the ancestor" and admits "I have aged".
The one who revolutionized French rap so much, notably by popularizing Auto-Tune, this music correction software, even lets go: "I'm too old for Snapchat / Send me on WhatsApp".
A worthy farewell to arms
The father, who lives in Miami with his two children, sometimes takes the mask off: "I never bit the hand that fed me, normal, it was mine / I'm not an algorithm, I I'm a man, it's not the same ”.
"I would like to have small children," he said again, admitting: "Two children, my cojones
(Editor's note: balls in Spanish)
, that's all I have".
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Booba is finally reaching out to the new generation.
Half of the titles are duets.
No stars by his side - it must be said that he got angry with most of them - but his friends Gato, Bramsito, Maes and the new generation, including the promising singer Elia, for a rare piano-voice ballad, “Grain de sable”, one of the most “mainstream” titles of his career.
In “Last time”, his last song, he repeats “Let me sing about freedom, illegality, one last time”.
You would think you were hearing a variety singer.
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Without being "ultra crazy", "Ultra" is a worthy farewell to weapons, to the still percussive writing and to quite varied and melodious music.
But will he take her one last time to the top of record sales?
After having sold three million albums, including 340,000 from the previous one, “Throne”, Booba set himself the goal of selling 80,000 records in the first week.
DR
EDITOR'S RATING: 4/5
"Ultra"
, by Booba, Tallac Records / Universal.