MC Solaar: Caroline
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I was cool, sitting on a bench. It was springtime. For a genre so dependent upon lyrics, not many rappers have the nerve to be lyrical. There are, to be sure, many MCs who are possessed of a deft turn of phrase and verbal skill, but true poetry is a little harder than that. The blame can't really be placed at Hip-Hop's door: popular music isn't really about literary cleverness, after all.
Perhaps it's something to do with the nature of the language in which he raps, but MC Solaar has always been a little different. This tale of amour fou begins with him watching lovers gather daisies, gathers pace through the reminiscence of an obsessive, doomed love and ends with slightly rueful hope (against hope) for a future reconciliation that won't happen. The tale is grounded upon two central metaphors: the addictive nature of obsessive love, as made plain by the fact that the object of our hero's affection's name is also slang for cocaine (as in the English 'Charlie,') and that of the relationship as game of chance. Je suis l'as de trèfle qui pique ton coeur - he is the ace of clubs who trumps her heart, or indeed her diamonds ('caro'). At least that's what he tells himself, but in the casino that is Paris he knows he has already lost. C'est la vie.