The Solaar Reissues, Volume 2: Prose Combat
A masterstroke of collective inspiration, MC Solaar's second album was a moment of grace in French rap history—but only a moment it could be.
One small story, almost a detail, provides some insight on the rare chemistry that made Prose Combat one of the most beloved albums of the French rap canon. Here it goes: in early 1994, weeks before release and with a deadline looming, MC Solaar’s second album barely had a working title. Now one of the hippest names in France’s music business, the artist suggested L'Art subtil du prose combat, a nod to a 1969 book about the game of go, co-written by adventurous polymath George Perec. At label Polydor, an A&R named Armand Thomassian was mildly convinced, but he sensed an idea behind the idea. One editing stroke later, the record had a name. Concise and percussive, so typically Solaar-esque, it would be Prose Combat.
This kind of last-minute decision would have been trivial if the whole album hadn’t that same clarity and sharpness in its execution, thanks in large part to the emulation of a close-knit working group. “There was a visual and musical symbiosis between us”, remembered Philippe Bordas years later. The photographer, who shot the cover of Prose Combat, was one of the eminences who whispered at the ear of MC Solaar. “Claude was surrounded by people who understood him and brought him little elements so he could synthesize them. It was natural and passionate, because we projected ourselves in his music.”
Two years after the Qui sème le vent récolte le tempo, the same creative team returned, strengthened by the experience of that breakthrough album. The producer-in-chief, Jimmy Jay, had been a national deejaying champion at 18, and he used Prose Combat to remind everyone of his bona fides through dazzling scratch sequences. This time, Jimmy Jay split beatmaking duties, almost fifty-fifty, with Hubert "Boom Bass" Blanc-Francard. Their mindset was one of competitive harmony, and their passion for jazz and R&B sampling gave the album its soulful palette. Behind the board, the late Philippe "Zdar" Cerboneschi amplified the sound as much as he transcended it. For him, Prose Combat represented a new plateau, closer to the once unreachable benchmark of American hip-hop. A born-again devout of house music, Zdar would also open escape routes at the end of certain songs by inserting glimpses of repetitive psychedelia, a direct influence of his experience in early-nineties rave parties.
At only 24, MC Solaar remained the center of this creative ecosystem, and Prose Combat lined up all the themes of his blossoming songbook. There was the self-amused nostalgia (“Obsolète”), the fly-on-the-wall observations (“Dieu ait son âme”), the political allegories (“La Concubine de l’hémoglobine”), and of course, these signature meditations on the trials of love (“Séquelles”, a companion heartache to his 1992 hit single “Caroline”). Solaar’s uncanny way of invoking random cultural figures—psychiatrist Jacques Lacan, football player Dino Zoff, porn star Tabatha Cash—was the product of an unbounded curiosity, but also a work method. It was an era when MC Solaar would scan through daily newspapers across the political spectrum, noting words and obsessions du jour, out of duty for his own craft. In "L'NMIACCd’HTCK72KPDP", a brilliant gramogram and rousing freestyle with Ménélik, Soon E MC and Les Sages Poètes de la Rue, MC Solaar opened his verse with a show-stopping line that reflected his appetite for dictionary entries: he couldn’t just say he was a rap precursor, he would be the advance warning of the ante-penultimate vanguard.
He could have been cryptic, but MC Solaar had ample confidence in the musicality of his words and the allure of French as a universal medium. In the final song, the titular “Prose Combat”, Solaar made a casual demonstration of this principle. Closing in on pure abstraction, he assembled syllables with a soothing voice, as if language was a secret code that he alone could decipher. Solaar went full Solaar: celebrating TV hero MacGyver and French actress Fanny Ardant in the same sentence, name-checking a Parisian metro station with an ear-pleasing name (Campo-Formio, line 5) or turning xenophobia on its head with a derisive pun. It was part hip-hop dadaism, part mission statement, part social commentary, all unfiltered style.
Nearly one hundred thousand people purchased a copy of Prose Combat on its release week in February 1994, the kind of achievement that only a handful of rappers could afford through the whole history of the genre in France. During awards season, MC Solaar won Male Artist Of The Year and Best Video for the never-ending tracking shot of “Nouveau Western”, directed by Stéphane Sednaoui. Beyond the accolades, Prose Combat also became a watershed for a certain brand of lighthearted rap that would be, for a few years, an ideological picket line, with its ephemeral radio stars (Ménélik, Alliance Ethnik, Mad in Paris) and its frowning detractors. “Nouveau Western”, with its spot-on sample (courtesy of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot) and its meta commentary on America’s cultural hegemony, naturally positioned MC Solaar as the living embodiment of French flair. A few years ahead of Daft Punk, he was becoming, quite possibly, the prime ambassador of French music around the world (his American peers had taken note: a few months before Prose Combat, Solaar made a star turn alongside Guru in the first Jazzmatazz album).
This would all be a fleeting moment. Behind the scene, tactical disagreements and individual ambitions were starting to add a little dissonance to the Solaar equilibrium. Around the hyperactive Jimmy Jay, who wanted to create his own rap Motown, many younger artists were awaiting their moment to shine. There were more records to produce, more doors to open, and probably a little too much to handle. Jimmy Jay left in the middle of the Prose Combat tour. MC Solaar let him go. The two would never work together again. Their team-up had lasted just long enough to produce two instant classics, one great showcase compilation (Les Cool Sessions) and many promises. The year was 1995, their idea of French rap had just come into focus and yet, it was already the end of an era.