Plan de ville

>> Montreal rap mainstay Stratège speaks up about the plight of French hip hop in Quebec

ONE FOR ALL: Stratège

After paying his dues as half of French hip hop group les Architeks, MC/producer Stratège has seen his share of forward movement under the umbrella of Quebec’s unique hip hop milieu. Having released his latest album, Back en solo, at the end of 2007, Stratège marks his return to the mic not only with a wealth of new material, but also some very candid ideas about where Quebec hip hop is right now, and where it will end up in the future.

Mirror: You were right there for the rise of French hip hop in Montreal, and you’re still here.

Stratège: A lot of things have changed since the first Sans Pression album came out, and I’m trying to adapt to the changes along with everybody else. There was a time when we could call MusiquePlus and they knew us, but once again, it’s extremely difficult to get the support that we once had.

M: Why do you think that is?

S: They think that hip hop is related to street gangs. So no matter what you say, and no matter what you do, if you’re black and you’re rapping nowadays, you better have a name like Imposs. The programming director there tried to explain to me that it’s really hard to push hip hop right now, and that we’re suffering from an image problem.

M: You think it’s racial?

S: They’re looking for people like Loco Locass, like Omnikrom and TTC. They want to change hip hop into a format that they’re going to be more comfortable with. They don’t want to see guys telling you what they think on a track and looking street. Basically, they want us to put water in our rum and coke, and we like our rum and coke really strong.

M: Do you feel like you have a new role to play in all of this?

S: Bringing awareness to the mass population. People still have to know that hip hop is not just a black thing, not just a white thing, it’s music. Before anything it’s music, and there’s way too much politics behind it right now for us to concentrate on music. It’s been 17 years I’ve been doing this and I feel like I have to fight for this music, because right now, people aren’t gonna hear what we have to say. Montreal artists are too busy bitching at each other to come together and move forward. In Quebec City, people are more interested in getting together, doing music, collaborating on tracks and so on. So right now, I just want to tell people to get back to the music. Let’s stop fighting so we can unite and ask TVA why they’re not playing hip hop, and TQS why they always associate hip hop and gangs in some way. Right now, that’s what I really feel I need to do, not just for myself, but for the good of everybody.

M: So what has to happen?

S: We need to talk about it. A big discussion needs to occur. If some hip hop conference could sit everybody together and we could talk, that would be a really good thing. Number two, doing interviews like I’m doing right now.

With Sinik and l’Algerino at
Club Soda on Friday, Feb. 8,
8 p.m., $25, all ages