Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Music Video: Stromae - Papaoutai

I absolutely adore the music coming out of Belgium these days.  I don't know what it is about that small country of just 11 million people, but they create some spectacular music out of all proportion to their size.  Unfortunately - at least from the standpoint of this blog - much of the awesome artists from Belgium perform in English.  Selah Sue, Customs, The Van Jets, Hooverphonic, and many others are artists who would pull in crowds anywhere.  But they all perform mostly or exclusively in English.  While that is fine from a marketing perspective, from my selfishly and jealously nativistic (in a nationally agnostic sort of way) perspective, this is too bad.  However, while I was perusing YouTube this afternoon, I was stunned to find a Belgian artist with hits in the tens of millions (and one with over 111 million hits!!!!!!!!), not just for one song - that could be considered a fluke - but for multiple songs.  How is an artist with this many hits not climbing to the top of the American charts and winning multiple Grammys?

Well, for one thing, Stromae only sings in French.

Born of a Belgian mother and a Rwandan father who was killed in the Rwandan genocide, Stromae produces an incredible blend of hip hop, electronica, dance, chanteur, and Caribbean.   His recent song Papaoutai perfectly encapsulates this uniquely infectious sound.   Stromae is everything I started this blog to find.  I hope you enjoy him too.