Folies Berbères

French-Berber singer, Karimouche, returns with her third album, Folies Berbères (Berber Madness), where she talks about growing up in France with a dual identity, chauvinism, ecology and everything in-between. With a tongue-in-cheek tone laced through her lyrics, the album is riddled with argot (French slang), electro and trap rhythms, but opening with a hypnotic duo of traditional drums and Berber-tinged melodies, Karimouche leaves no doubt that her influences go beyond Jacques Brel.

‘Dans ma Ville’ narrates a walk in her city, being hit on by young guys, and musing on mid-life crises. A more cautionary tale for the social media addicts, ‘Polluée’, with its catchy hook and music that moves, is actually a bleak message of pipe-dreams and disintegrating minds. ‘La Promesse de Marianne’ with its sobering refrain (‘given where you come from, don’t bother having business-class dreams’) is an ode to first and second generation immigrants alike. Evoking Hendrix’s rendition of ‘Star Spangled Banner’, Karimouche sings the French national motto ‘Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité’ which echoes with disillusion. With wry lyrics that shy away from nothing, Folies Berbères is a potent reflection on societal temperament and its sometimes gritty realities.