music4kangaroos

Ministère des Affaires Populaires (MAP)

Debout là d'dans

WEBSITE



Country : France

Style : Hip-hop

release date : 24/04/2007






le Ministère des Affaires Populaires, literally Ministry of Popular Matters, is a hip-hop band from Lille,  in the north of France, a stricken mining region. A beatbox, a violin, an accordion, a few cymbals and 2 MCs (Dias & Hk), a cocktail giving a fresh and original sound, far from the boring hip hop you can easily hear.

Debout la d'dans is their first and only album. Released during the time of French elections, this album is a call for tolerance and cultural diversity. Musette, mediteranean and gypsy culture are mixed up in this album, giving an explosive nature to the sound, in order to combine hip hop with music universality, and to wake consciousnesses up.

The lyrics are always politically engaged, but the songs are very diverse. "Balle Populaire" pun meaning "popular bullet", or " popular ball" is calling for tolerance, as "Debout là d'dans", while accordion is giving a musette look to the refrain. They don't forget to give an acid critic to their region, to which they are attached though, in the song "Lillo".  The MCs having algerian descents, Oriental cuture is present in songs like "Manich Mena", mainly because of darbukas and an arabic refrain, dealing with the difficulties for immigrant genrations ("rootless trees") to find any bearings in a discriminating society, hiding and dissimulating its history. "Nos Affaires" and "Avancer" are anti-conservative hymns for freedom of acting and involvment into building a best future. "Donnez-Nous" is a meaningful song, dealing with musical diversity and stupid inconsistent TVs and radios, and struggling against "genetically modified artists" : "give us sane, bio, halal, and not commercial". "En haut de l'affiche" is inspirated by an Aznavour's song, is about wrong models diffused on TVs and Magazines, showing a fake idea of musical careers. They don't forget to talk about actual problems, like the irakian war, in the song "sheherazade", telling the story of the irakian people, through princess Sheherazade, waiting for soldiers to deliver her. But these soldiers are actually searching for a strange treasure... "1001 dirty stories" are resulting of the 1001 nights. The best song of the album is maybe "Elle est belle la France". the topic is quite the same as "Manich Mena", but is added the critic of the governement mockery, to which everything is allowed, in opposition with the "zero tolerance" for workers, unemployed or immigrated people....

MAP succeded to both denounce and play down delicate themes, like unemployment, racism, discriminations, selfism and slenderness, with a hot and original hip-hop, cheering up and giving some rage.


Note : 5/5

 

LOS FABULOSOS CADILLCAS

HOLA-CHAU

Style : Rock

Country : Argentina

Release date : 2006 (CD-DVD)

 

Los Fabulosos Cadillacs are the most influent rock-latin band of Argentina from the 90’s. They started their career in 1985 as a ska band and they later mixed numerous styles like reggae, jazz, murga, rock and so on… the band changed and has been modified since 1985 but the singer Vicentico, and the bassist Flavio (the band founders) are still present. The album was recorded in 2001, during a concert played at the Obras stadium in Buenos aires. They wanted to say a last “chau” (good bye) to their fans after 15 years of activity.

Every single hit is recorded in this album. “Siguiendo la luna”, “en el aguijon”, « Calaveras y Diablitos », « carmela », « padre nuestro » are still full of energy, and the public gives even more power to those hits. Of course the Cadillac’s hymn Matador is also present and greatly interpretated.

Now, what does this CD really worth? Is it necessary to have it in his library when you have all their studio albums? I’d say yes. If you don’t know the band, of course it is the essential album to have. And if you know it and it does not excite you… I’d say yes too. There is a “plus” in this album, due to the fact it is live recorded. Catchy (ex: El satanico Dr Cadillac) and slow songs (ex: basta de llamarme asi) are well alternated, also the styles, and it is easy to reach the end of the disc without any headache or weariness.

This is the same for the DVD, where the CD has been directly taken from. The image quality is perfect and nothing is missing.

This album is a good summary of their career, which is now finished, and that can be not that bad. How many bands have done awful things in their last years? At least, now, even though some bands are following the Cadillac’s path, any of them can pretend to have reached their status of latino-american rock legends.

Note : 5/5


Video : Quiero morirme aca