Belgian-born musician Paul Van Haver, more commonly known as Stromae, has never made huge waves in the UK. This is perhaps due to the fact his first language is French. Nevertheless, his music is vastly underappreciated – whether you speak French or not, you can still recognise his talent.
His stage name comes from reversing the syllables of ‘maestro’, and that’s a pretty good summation of Stromae’s music; it’s quirky, it’s different and it’s clever. Many of his tracks feature complex arrangements of different instruments, but he is no stranger to stripping his music all the way back, and ‘humain à l’eau’ is a perfect example of this.
Featuring 3, maybe 4 basic sounds at a time, accompanied by the rap, ‘humain à l’eau’ is incredibly simple, focusing almost all the attention on the lyrics. Stromae speaks largely about differences between ‘primitive’ tribal people and ‘modern’ people, and how we practically belong to different worlds. He assumes the perspective of a tribal person indigenous to Papua New Guinea and mentions issues such as climate change; ‘humain à l’eau’ translates to ‘man overboard’, possibly referring to the idea of rising sea levels as a result of global warming. It really is worth taking a look at the full translation, as Stromae makes some interesting points that are rarely touched upon by musicians.
Of course, you can simply listen to the song and just enjoy it as background music without listening to the lyrics – the song is completely synthetic besides his vocals, and has a strong drum’n’bass vibe with a very catchy riff. ‘humain à l’eau’ perfectly encapsulates Stromae’s ability to pair controversial/important issues in society with popular music. If this particular song is not to your taste, please do not be discouraged from listening to some of Stromae’s other tracks; his style is remarkably varied so it’s worth listening to more than one of his songs. Stromae is well and truly unique in many aspects, and hopefully we won’t have to wait too long for new material.
Words by Ruth Grove