Camille

Camille makes me want to be in France dancing playfully in my apartment with a baguette in one hand and a Pinot Noir in the other while singing at the top of my lungs. I want to take French classes again so that I can know all of her French lyrics (because I like some of her English songs but prefer the French more than the others).

I first heard her a couple of years ago when Invisible Children used her song "Assise" (sitting) in one of their promo videos. I remember watching the video repeatedly because the song was so mesmerizing with its unique percussion, minimal instrumentation and the trademark B-note tone that is a thread throughout her second album Le Fil ("The Thread").

Other Camille songs don't disappoint. She's creative and artistic, playing with song and sound much like Lenka or Björk. If her work was a painting, I'd call it naïve art. Her sound is often simple, playful and youthful, though her subjects are not. One of my favorite is Pâle Septembre, which references Sept. 11, 2001.

Rumor has it her live performances are trés bien, aussi!

Here's a quick mixed tape playlist of songs I like. I'll add links to tracks as I find them:

Assise, Le Fil, 2005
Paris, Le Sac Des Filles, 2002
Janine 1, Janine 2 & Janine 3 (less than 1 minute each, but they're hot; 1 is my favorite), Le Fil, 2005
Pâle Septembre, Le Fil, 2005
Vous, Le Fil, 2005
Home is Where it Hurts, Music Hole, 2008
Pour Que L'amour Me Quitte, Le Fil, 2005
Ruby, Le Sac Des Filles, 2002
Elle S'en Va, Le Sac Des Filles, 2002

Emmanuel Jal: A Hip Hop Storyteller

I decided to kick off this blog with Emmanuel Jal when I saw that he's offering a free download right now that you should get. My sister introduced me to this war child just shy of a year ago, and I was most moved by his storytelling.

You're not going to hear lyrics reeking of overinflated ego and machismo on a Jal album. He's not going to talk about how much money he's making, how many girls he's doing or how many people should fear him. In fact, you might hear him say exactly the opposite. His song "No Bling" includes lyrics that say, "I ain't the best rapper," and "No hos, no bitches, no bling / I don't need none of those things." This material-seeking, ego-boosting lifestyle is not his story, and for Sudanese-born Jal, true hip hop is all about telling your story. He confirms this with the opening line in his hit song "War Child"—"I believe I've survived for a reason / to tell my story, to touch lives."

Jal's story is a treacherous tale of one of the most horrifying injustices in Sudan: child soldiering and genocide. While he uses some beats familiar to the U.S. hip hop scene, his songs have strong African and Jamaican rhythms and often incorporate a mixture of languages.

And Jal is an activist, too, working with several organizations and campaigns to end child soldiering and creating his own non profit GUA Africa to help war-torn villages make poverty history. His songs even call to question some of the issues in the world with bold lyrics like "To Mr. Oil-, Diamond-, and Gold-miner / stop treating Mama Africa like a vagina / She's not your whore, not anymore / You take the riches and you leave the people poor" in his song "Vagina."

So I'll start you with a short Jal mixed tape playlist of a few songs I like:

Warchild, Warchild, 2008
Many Rivers to Cross (feat. Roachie & Ayak), Warchild, 2008
Vagina, Warchild, 2008
I Never Knew, Gua, 2005
Mother, Instant Karma, 2009

Learn More
Emmanuel Jal: The music of a war child | Video on TED.com