Under the Radar (2): La Gale

la-gale-siteShe’s part Libanese, part Swiss. She raps, in French, over fierce electronic music. Yes, I know, we usually post about hoarse girls, but this is really good too. La Gale, also an actress, incorporates all kinds of influences in her music. In Frontières, imho the strongest track on her first album, you can hear the Middle-Eastern atmosphere. But also the tough, laidback-yet-agressive rapstyle of the great French hiphopcrews, like NTM. Women in hiphop are rare, girls with their own voice are hard to find. Granted, it’s not revolutionary what La Gale’s doing. But it has style, quality and, well, I dunno, I guess it’s nice to hear a fille spit rhymes for a while instead of whispering sexy in my ears. Try it.

Brigitte

Brigitte – great name for a female French duo. Just like Serge is a great name for a music magazine. The blonde and the brunette, Aurelie (or should we say Mayane?) and Sylvie, first popped up on this blog in 2009. A few posts below, Misterblog is saying that the irresistable Battez-vous is getting more and more airplay in France. Summer-hit? You guessed it. The first full album is out now, it’s called Et vous, tu m’aimes? That kicks off with Battez-vous, and includes their rework of NTM’s hiphophit Ma Benz (fabulous Brigitte-video here). There are several interludes, ‘hidden tracks’, a song consisting of titles of Claude François-chansons (very funny) and an ‘English song’ to end all English songs by French artists. Battez-vous is by far the best track on the album, but the groove of Oh La La got me hooked as well.

Brigitte – Oh La La