Dany Dan, member at the time of Les Sages Poètes de la Rue, returns with a new album:
Pieces Montées
.
This time the rapper associates his
“micro-revolver”
– an image used in the song
My Territory
– with a sample swordsman, Kyo Itachi, a Parisian hidden behind a mask and an alias inspired by the world of manga.
The album, which comes out Friday, is called
Mounted Pieces
and builds a bridge between the clever sound assemblages of American rap from the 1990s and the racy writing of the French school of the same era.
Rich in rare and sweet rhymes, as the first title Rarissime
proclaims
.
This will revive memories for the oldest and can direct the youngest towards the Wise Poets of the Street.
This collective from Boulogne-Billancourt, in the Paris region, emerged in 1995 with the song
Bon Kiss du Poste
, associated with the soundtrack of the film
Hate by Mathieu Kassovitz
and a first album that year.
Their influence is immediately felt, since the lyrics of their song
What Makes the Wise Men Walk?
emerge in
Bouger la tête
, on the IAM disc,
L'école du micro d'argent
(1997).
And their shadow still looms.
Benjamin Epps, new voice, quotes the Wise Poets in
Captain Flame
(2023).
“I have artistic recognition, that of my writing, but not that of the general public
,” analyzes Dany Dan, a fifty-year-old.
Kyo Itachi, in his forties, is in a form of fullness, since he has already worked with some of his American idols, such as the rapper Sean Price.
The sound architect, capable of sampling
“jazz, psychedelic rock, Ethiopian soul
”, as he told AFP, found in Dany Dan an alter ego, a geyser of propositions.
Someone capable of leaving a legacy of punchline.
Except that you should not say this word in front of them, who prefer the
“punch rhymes”
, one of the tracks on the record.
“It’s rare to have a sentence without an English word, I’m not on the side of the National Rally, eh, but I regret that people say “punchline” everywhere, I even see shows about rap with the word “punchline””
, laments Dany Dan.
Kyo Itachi adds:
“We even hear people say: “if there is no punchline, your text is not good”...".
But the pair refuse to let themselves be pigeonholed into
“it was better before”
.
“Rap is a tree with a trunk and a billion branches, a billion currents, I don't like to differentiate between new and old generation
,” insists Dany Dan.
While hip-hop has just celebrated its 50th anniversary in the USA and its 40th anniversary in France, the album
“Pièces montages”
nevertheless pays a vibrant tribute to the pioneers on both sides of the Atlantic.
Dany Dan thus mentions Grandmaster Flash, legend from the Bronx, and Lionel D, trendsetter on Radio Nova, then widely listened to by apprentice rappers in the Paris region.
All in a disc open to the present.
The current fractures in society come to the surface in the
Crypto cash
pieces - we hear the famous
“Ahou, Ahou”
, the rallying cry of social movements - or
Riot
, in the telling title.