Swiss Hip Hop Scene: Update!

To paraphrase Harry Doyle: this ain't the best blog about Lausanne hip hop for nothing. Want to know who the latest sensation on the Swiss hip hop scene is? Well, you came to the right place!

Now, most of you are probably rolling your eyes and saying, "Duh, this is just going to be an update about how Stress (my previous favorite swiss rapper -ed.) has a new album that just dropped on April 3 and how he is coming to Lausanne on the 30th for a concert." Wrong. This blog isn't about old info that you could find anywhere; this blog is about what is happening right now on the streets and what everyone will be talking about next. Wanna know who's next? One word: Sisma. (p.s. do not click on that link unless you actually like myspace pages).

Fig. 1: Proof that wearing a bandanna does not automatically make you cool.

Sisma is from the mean streets of Bellinzona, aka "B'Zone", population 17,111, in Ticino but has recently relocated to Lausanne, presumably in an effort to build up his street cred, something which was probably difficult to do in a town that is largely known for being home to a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Since he's from Ticino -- Switzerland's only Italian speaking Canton -- he raps in Italian, so I'm not sure how much success he'll find here in Lausanne. If you want to hear his music, here's a much better link where you can listen to some of his songs and learn a little about him.

How did I find out about him? Checking out all the underground hip hop clubs? Downloading mix tapes? Not so much. What happened was this: last night I was wandering around downtown Lausanne with my buddy Jens when we came across what looked like a music video shoot. As there was some professional looking lighting and even a professional looking fog machine, we thought it might have actually been a professional music video. A quick look at the roughly 3 people standing around watching it suggested, however, that whoever it was could not draw much of a crowd. I wandered over to one of the guys who looked like he might be attached to the project and asked him who the artist was. He gave me pretty much all of the information above and more, along with the promise that I would definitely see the video on MTV soon.

Although he was pretty enthusiastic about this point, I have to admit that it is unlikely this video will ever make it to a wide audience. First, as noted above, Sisma raps in Italian which really limits his potential market in Switzerland. Linguistically, Switzerland is pretty strongly divided and it's rare for an Italian musician to have success in the French or German parts or vice versa. Second, I think Switzerland has pretty much hit its limit of short, white, yelling rappers. Based on the few songs he has on myspace, the only differences between him and Stress are that he raps in Italian and has worse production. And finally, I don't think MTV will ever show a music video that is shot in the courtyard in front of the Ecole-Club Migros. I know there's a weird, futuristic sculpture there, but I think they could have done a better job scouting locations.

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For the most part, I have pretty much given up on reading "20 Minutes," one of the free daily newspapers in town. After a while, I got kinda tired of reading celebrity gossip, and more importantly, they stopped carrying Garfield and Dilbert. Thus, it was only by sheer luck that the other day I saw this picture on the cover:

Fig. 2: Does your garage rock band have a color scheme and matching outfits? I didn't think so.

The story (which can be found here) was about how a local Vaudois rock group had unfairly had their own songs removed from myspace by Warner Bros, due to some mistakenly directed anti-piracy measures. Pretty dull. What is not dull, though, is that I recognized one of the people in the picture! In the lower right corner, in the glasses and with the megaphone, is my French professor from last semester!

Easily my favorite of the French professors I've had here in Switzerland, Raphaël Noir is better known as Jerry Black, the lead singer of Climax. Climax is "the new garage mod sensation" or, better yet, the "prophète helvétique du garage rock." Pretty awesome. I have yet to hear them live, but the songs they had available online sounded promising and I will admit to having a weakness for any group that uses a megaphone as an instrument. They are performing in Lausanne at the end of May, so hopefully more news to come.

Lausanne, vous êtes prêts à faire la fête?!

Probably the two most common questions people ask me about this blog are, "What can you tell me about the swiss hip-hop scene?" and "How are you, my little son?" Until this weekend, the answers to those questions were, "not much" and "I'm fine, Mom." Thankfully, this weekend I got my first taste of Suisse-Romande hip hop and it was not bad at all.

This weekend was Label Suisse, which in addition to being a clever pun was also a weekend-long party featuring dozens of free concerts in a handful of venues across Lausanne. The party was supposed to commemorate the opening of the new M2 metro line, but since that won't actually open for another month, Party-goers were forced to wait inline for a half-hour if they wanted a special "test ride" this weekend. At any rate, it was a huge deal and an estimated 300,000 people showed up for the excitement, and I was one of them. And, if that wasn't enough, meanwhlie the Comptoir Suisse -- sort of the Del Mar Fair of Lausanne -- was going on as well. Between that and waiting -- longingly -- at the train station, I had a full weekend. Here are some highlights, in no particular order.

The Comptoir Suisse was in many ways identical to a County Fair in the US. There were cows, there were pigs, there were machines that sliced and diced, and there was plenty of unhealthy food to go around (no Fried Twinkies, but really, how healthy is fondue?). For example, had I waited in line, I could have tried out the exciting "Cow Milking Simulator."'

Fig. 1: Yes, there was a line for this. No, I have no idea why.

One of the local cheeses here is called "Tete de moine," Monk's Head, and the way it's prepared is thus: the cheese comes in roughly head-shaped chunks and a special blade on a screw is used to cut little florettes. It's not my favorite Swiss cheese, but it was kinda fun to see someone dressed as a monk serving up free samples. By the way, this guy was straight-up stingy with the samples. I had to stand there with a hangdog look on my face for like 5 minutes before his carved me a florette. The things we do for free food..

Fig. 2: He's all smiles when he's giving samples to the little kids.

Let's face it, this blog is little more than an excuse to show pictures of baby farm animals, so I'll cut to the chase. Enjoy your piglets.

Fig. 3: OMG! They were even cuter in person, if that is even possible!

Finally, one part of the fair was truly spectacular. God knows why, but for some reason there was a fully functional bar/party scene at the fair. Despite the fact that it was the middle of the afternoon, there were literally hundreds of young people packed into this place. I would estimate that this photo represents the largest number of Swiss people wearing sombreros ever documented.

Fig. 4: Senor Frog's in Cancun at 3 AM, or Lausanne at 3 PM? You decide.

Enough about the fair; onto the music. I saw bits and pieces of a few of the concerts -- only 5 minutes of the death metal band Enhancer, unfortunately -- but the big deal was definitely Stress, the star of the Suisse-Romande hip-hop scene. He performed Sunday night before a crowd that absolutely filled the Place de la Riponne, no small feat. In case you're curious, the concerts ran through Sunday night since monday was a holiday in Vaud -- allegedly, it's the "National Day of Fasting," but we all know the real reason to celebrate September 22.

Admittedly, I am a sucker for live music and I am pretty much guaranteed to love anything loud and rocking, but I have to say that Stress put on a pretty darn good show. Although I had never heard of him, most of you undoubtedly have. Along with his good friend Nega, who performed with him Sunday, he was part of the rap duo "Double Pact" -- n.b. you are not pronouncing it right if you are saying it in English. Imagine it in the most French accent possible, and you've got it. Together, they've had a quite a few hit records and are probably the only Suisse-Romande rappers who are popular in the Swiss-German part of the country as well. For the concert, they brought a full band with them (drums, bass, guitar, samples) and the effect was great. Most rappers don't exactly shine in live concerts, but Stress wasn't too bad. I'd describe his style as halfway between Sage Francis and Linkin Park: some yelling, but generally pretty straight-forward and enjoyable.

Fig. 5: People let me tell you 'bout my best friend, he's a warm-hearted person who'll love me to the end.

Lyrically, I couldn't really tell you what the songs were about; they were all in French. Although my French is getting better every day, understanding rap lyrics is just a bit beyond me at this point. Here is a summary of what I did understand: one of the songs was about his cat, Gilbert, who died. It was a very sad song. The only English was when he did a couple of verses (in French) to the Kanye West song "Stronger," which struck me as a little ironic. The big hit of the night was his song about multiculturalism. He introduced it by talking about how looking into the audience gave him hope for the future of a multicultural Switzerland (I'm not sure how he got this, there were more multicultural people on stage -- 3 -- than I could see from where I was standing) and then he started rapping about naturalization. Or something like that. At any rate, the crowd really got going when he lead them in chants of "BLOCHER RAUS," which I thought was pretty cool.

During one of the slow numbers, he asked everyone to hold up their lighters or their cellphones. I tried to take a picture of this, because it was truly remarkable. EVERYONE here smokes. EVERYONE. That's the subject of a differnt, much more extended post, though.

Fig. 6: FREEEEEEEEEEEBIRD!

All in all, it was an awesome show. You can listen to almost all of the concerts and even see some videos here. For those of you who are on the fence about coming out here and visitng me, to paraphrase Slick Rick, this kind of stuff happens every day. Almost every weekend that I've been here there has been some sort of concert, festival, or event. For example: this weekend is La Nuit des Musées. All of the museums will be free and open late at night and will have special exhibits, including DJ's and other crazy stuff. I'm probably not going to be in town, but that's no big deal because I guarantee there will be something awesome next weekend, too. Ain't no party like a Vaudois party.

P.S. For those of you curious about what one must do to travel from Grenoble to Lausanne, I've made a handy checklist.

• Get on a train bound for Geneva.
• Bring your passport.
• Prepare to ROCK.

Unfortunately, Dr. Swenson could never check off more than two of those at any time and thus missed out on the excitement. Do not make the same mistakes!