Alors on Danse! Stromae is back
By Frankie Berardino, February 1 2022—
Almost 10 years since his last full-length album Racine Carrée, popular French artist Stromae has recently announced his return to music. The Belgian-Rwandan French-electro-pop singer and rapper was propelled to fame in the late 2000s and early 2010s with the hit songs like “Alors on Danse,” “Tous les Mêmes,” and “Papaoutai.”
Becoming almost a cultural phenomenon in the French-speaking world, Stromae is one of the few non-English musicians to transcend the heavy language barrier that plague many non-English speaking artists. Stromae, also known as Paul Van Haver, makes more than just music. He provides his audiences with an experience through tapping into the elements of music and rhythm that makes you want to move.
While continuing to offer aesthetics through carefully curated music videos, clear artistic visions, fashion and color palettes, Stromae delivers his audience’s art.
After his great successes and constant touring, Stromae decided to take a break from music creation to focus on himself in 2015 citing burnout and depression as potential withdrawal symptoms from an anti-malaria drug.
Burnout is something that more people can relate to globally as work-from-home jobs and education due to the pandemic have blurred the lines between work and relaxation environments. Behind the veil of huge global success, Stromae seemingly disappeared from the public eye until late 2021, when he teased his comeback with the announcement of his new album Multitude set to be released in early March and the single “Santé.”
A classic electronic song for Stromae, in “Santé” he focuses his lyrics on telling the story of people working minimum wage and frontline jobs in the middle of the pandemic. Depicting mostly people of colour immigrant workers in the music video, “Santé” touches on the political nature of the pandemic, and how inequalities are still rampant, even under a groovy beat.
His second released single off the album “L’enfer” deals with depression and the heavy states it can cause a person to live with. Despite both lyrics being in French, Stromae eloquently expresses the backstories through his creative music videos, which in themselves are aesthetic and provide context to his music.
In a way, many of his songs touch on the very fabric of what it means to be a human living in the modern world. His music, although at times discussing serious topics, remains light-hearted to the non-French speaking ear.
Comebacks can be difficult for artists, and sometimes even a bit awkward. But Stromae seems to be re-adjusting himself to the world of music fairly effortlessly to an outsider’s eye.
From recent interviews and performances in both the French and English speaking worlds, it seems like many people are excited about his long-awaited return. Look out for Stromae’s third-studio album, Multitude, set to come out on March 4.