Karimouche Channels Pop & Poetry

Karimouche is a whimsical, multitalented artist. Part chanteuse, part rapper, and part slam poet, her songs incorporate her wide-ranging of influences of Pop, traditional French chanson, Hip Hop, and Reggae (particularly Ragga).

The artist does not consider herself a singer, but rather a performer who sometimes sings, raps, or slams to bring variety to her performances. I’d compare her to Ani DiFranco in terms of the way she mixes it up within a verse.

Karimouche is a portmanteau of vocalist Carima Amarouche’s first and last name, and also the name of her band, which includes keyboardist Jean-Pierre Caporossi and human beat box Kosh.

Carima herself is of Moroccan descent (she sings in Berber and French) and grew up in a housing project in Lyon, France. Her background includes theater, costume design, and dance. She and the band first rose to popularity through their playful and prize-winning performances at prestigious music festivals.

Karimouche’s grab bag of musical influences includes singing rappers like Missy Elliot and Miss Dynamite, pure rappers like Eminem, jazz great Herbie Hancock, French legends Léo Ferré and Edith Piaf, and rapper Oxmo Puccino.

Emballage d’Origine

A listen to “P’tit Kawa” (below) is really the best way to judge if you’ll like this artist and her debut album. Her playful, hiccupy, slam-style delivery is present throughout the album, so if you enjoy it on this song (like I do), then you’ll enjoy it on other tracks.

The official singles are the aforementioned “P’tit Kawa,” “Ché pas c’ke j’veux” and “Atmosphère,” but I picked out some tracks that are worth checking out. Check the “Download” list after the video.

The tres creative video for “P’tit Kawa” is made entirely from stop motion photographs and paper cutout animations.

“P’tit Kawa” (or ‘petit caoua’) is colloquial French for “little coffee.” (“Kahwa” is also the Arabic word for coffee.) The song is basically about the scenes of daily life in the somewhat bleak world outside her window. The cast of characters in the video are represented by various animal cutouts: the morning commuters, the neighborhood junkie, the lame woman, the cousin who calls to whine and complain, the elitist bourgeoisie, the idle urban youth, the hostile police officers, and the fat cat stockbrokers.

At one point, she checks the mail for her unemployment check. Through it all, she drinks her little coffee and questions why things are the way they are. It’s not a carefree song, but it’s a catchy one that a lot of people can relate to this economy.

Here’s the chorus and my rough translation
Et moi, pendant c’ temps-là (And me, all the while)
Je bois mon p’tit kawa (I drink my little coffee)
En regardant tout ça (Watching it all)
Et j’ me chuchote tout bas (And I whisper to myself)
Pourquoi c’est comme çi ? (Why it’s like this)
Pourquoi c’est comme ça ? (Why it’s like that)
Et tra la la la la, bla bla bla bla

There are a few different things I like about “Ché pas c’ke j’veux”: the way she totally hams it up for the camera, the lulling, almost-Hawaiian feel of the instrumentals, and the out-of-nowhere Raggamuffin rap she bursts into at the 1:56 mark:

Download: “Contretemps,” “P’tit Kawa,” “L’emballage d’origine,” “Ché pas c’ke j’veux,” “Tizen”

Karimouche is currently preparing a new album for fall 2014. Watch this space.

What do you think of Karimouche? Leave a comment below.