Now this is a piece of music I stumbled upon by pure chance. But I figured “hell, why not” and now I’m thanking myself for stepping outside my box for once.
Clotaire K is an MC, producer and musician (as in “real instruments”) from Montpellier, France, and the son of a Lebanese mother and an Egyptian father.
This is his entirely self-produced debut album, recorded mainly in Montpellier, which is in the South of France, but a few tracks were made while on holiday in Lebanon. In fact, the whole album has a distinctly international feel, even though we can hear Near Eastern instruments on most of the tracks, laced with classic hip-hop beats on one, drum’n’bass-type sped-up beats on another and then again, on the next track, beautiful and subtle compositions in the tradition of Middle Eastern folk music, all produced and played by the man himself.
Clotaire had spent a year in the States before returning to France to start recording this album over the course of six years. The lyrics range from English to French and Arabic, although I must say that there’s a clear difference in quality between his slightly wooden verses in English and his tight delivery in French and Arabic. Subject matter is mostly about personal and social issues, making comments on people’s fate in the Near East, on his family and on music itself, of course.
I’ll admit it. I’d never heard of this guy until a few weeks ago, when I spotted the CD in the city library. I didn’t expect too much when I started listening. But now I know I’ll definitely be keeping an eye open for this cat. He’s quite likely one of my great discoveries of last year. And if you can’t be arsed to listen to something you don’t understand, just play the last two instrumental tracks called Emigrate (Remix) and Takassim. Pure musical genius.
This is a fresh rip without the glitches that the previous one had. Apologies.
01. Maqam
02. Beyrouth Ecoeuree
03. Moolook
04. Wahad
05. Ya Saryan
06. Bokra
07. Papa
08. Beep
09. Lubnan
10. Banadoora
11. Flotte
12. Le Criminel
13. Laisse Les
14. Bif Bam Boom
15. Tampooshy
16. Emigrate
17. Takassim
ClotaireK.com
BBC Radio Review
UKHH.com Review
Salaam, 9@home
2 November 2006 at 12:36 pm
muuuy bueno! thanks. Te linkee en http://especias-hi-fi.blogspot.com
11 November 2006 at 11:01 pm
Thanks so much for this. I had first run across Clotaire K on a comp named “Instructible Asian Beats,” but hadn’t been able to find any other samples of his work. I’m loving your blog!
7 November 2007 at 5:41 pm
this sounds good. the link is dead though
The lebanese have some pretty good hip hop, you should check out Kita B and Beyrouth incognito, two crews that brew a smooth oriental instrumentalized hip hop.
Here i uploaded a track from each of them for you, sorry i don’t know the track names.
http://rapidshare.com/files/68095654/Kita_B_and_Beyrouth_incognito.rar.html
7 November 2007 at 5:47 pm
I’d up it again, but unfortunately, one or two of the tracks were a bit messed up when I ripped the CD.
But needless to say, it’s a pretty good album. Let me see…
Thanks for the samples.
7 November 2007 at 6:25 pm
oh well thanks anyway!
30 January 2009 at 4:42 pm
Hi,
do you know where is possible to download this album?
Thanks
3 February 2009 at 12:41 pm
I’ll re-up it sometime soon.
17 February 2009 at 3:30 pm
Hello admin, nice site ! Good content, beautiful design, thank you!
21 February 2009 at 1:45 am
God, I love editing these whack-ass spam posts for their piss-poor spelling – and taking the spam link out… ;)
18 February 2009 at 6:15 am
Looking for information and found it at this great site…
18 February 2009 at 6:17 am
Excellent web site I will be visiting often!
19 February 2009 at 4:04 am
Your work is marvelous!!
20 February 2009 at 3:17 am
Very cool design! Useful information. Go on!
4 March 2009 at 4:31 am
Great site. I will bookmark it for my sons to view as well!
4 March 2009 at 11:01 pm
A fantastic site, and brilliant effort. A great piece of work!
12 March 2009 at 12:58 am
Salam,weel this group of music is my favorite because talk about or really is more special for me this song i love clotaire k and also i love beirut of course live beirut and alexandria yeah!!!!!!
3 November 2009 at 8:04 pm
thanks, I will be giving this a listen.
3 November 2009 at 8:52 pm
re-upping now…
23 February 2012 at 2:20 pm
can you re-up please ?
23 February 2012 at 3:00 pm
I’ll see…