Louis-José Houde is my new hero. Did you hear his great plea for “Québécois French” at the ADISQ gala? It touched me deeply.
The problem is that I’m not sure all members of the “next generation” of “emerging” music are as in love with the language as my uncle Louis-José.
BRAVO LOUIS-JOSÉ HOUDE!
As he concluded his 18th and final gala, Louis-José Houde explained that it was his “love for the French language” that convinced him to host this gala 18 years ago.
“I think Quebec French is beautiful, I think it is rich, I think it is the most beautiful thing we have. […] A language can die, it has already happened elsewhere. When we have a language as a tool, we have the chance to support it, to embellish it, to make it dance and, above all, to give young people the taste to embrace it. […] A living language is a language that is sung. So, keep singing, dear friends, more than ever, keep singing.” Wow! What a beautiful message!
Except that during the gala we could hear artists of the new generation and at times I couldn’t understand a word of what came out of their mouths. Bluster, gibberish.
The worst case occurred during the section on nominees in the Revelation of the Year category. When rapper Calamine arrived on stage, I understood NOTHING of what she was singing.
I even did the test on QUB radio on Monday: I played the excerpt to Louis-José Houde, who had difficulty identifying a single word.
So I did a search to find the lyrics to the song that Calamine performed at the gala, called “Lesbienne woke on autotune.”
So here’s an example: “The queen of the dirty block ended up fucking lost in the East / Chatting on the catnip with the girls, girls in my gang-gang / […] Lots of queens in my highlands, / queer guys in my cell phone.
“Estrogen at full dose, I’m killing the game / Bulldog is my totem, my top ten, he’s all pink / Are you a butch or a handsome young man? The hair makes them all emotional/
“Millions of years of direct rule, I screwed it all up in zero seconds / I rap good as cellophane, queenship is like Cleopatra / Ratchet is a pleonasm, hoodie and leopard print leggings / Everywhere it just excites him with red flags, that’s me.” a damn unstable bull.”
ARE YOU FUCKING HER?
The Sainte Foy artist who chose Calamine as her stage name has the right to rap about whatever she wants. But I wonder if she doesn’t cross the line when she says in the same song: “Ah yeah, I’m not an MP, I’m doing raps, I’m tired of voting at the federal level / In the Bloc Queb’ y’ has pederasts.” “Yo, fuck them all in general! / How do I know it’s basement? Stay tuned / I think I’m missing B12, the leader of the right is a gay guy.
Is verbal violence acceptable because we are a “woke lesbian”? And we have the privilege of being chosen as the crème de la crème of the next generation at the Evening of Music Excellence?
