Article written in the framework of the collaboration between the writing Culture of Figaro and the IPJ Paris-Dauphine.
Lord Esperanza loves to go fast. Nine projects in five years, 52 pieces published in 2017, with tours on several continents… this afternoon cloudy in February, the rapper’s 22-year grants, however a break to talk with us. Sitting at a table in a bar in Pigalle, in the Xviii arrondissement of Paris, who was born and grew up, a few hundred yards of a Cicada, in which he completed his last tour on march 8, before starting a new one at the end of may, it evokes the release of his very first album may 24, Drapeau Blanc .
A turtleneck sweater brown on the shoulders, he sips a coffee lying down, back to a fogged window, and the eyes bright above a thin mustache freshly trimmed. «I go out to an interview in a kebab, but I don’t eat meat, so I took a vegetarian dish.» Lord Esperanza surprises, and likes to surprise. Since 2014, he distills his flow is frenetic all ears alerted, varying also styles that he handles the pen. With the greatest of ease.
To listen to it, yet nothing exceptional in what they do. «I’m just knocking on open doors», a loose-t-it, simple surveyor of a road of «rap white» opened since the beginning of the decade by the «pioneers» Nekfeu, Romeo Elvis et al, and on which Lord Esperanza would not be, according to his words, as a passenger. Soon in first class…
Thou shalt not be a rapper, my son
The first stage name of Theodore Desprez, it was Speranza. One of the «era» of the early freestyles, and the first clashes in the rooms of the boarding school». The surname of a kind «romantic and poetic» as a fan of jean-michel Basquiat, MC Solaar, jacques Brel, Shakespeare and Michel Tournier. Later, at the approach of 20 years, the young man adds Lord the Speranza, to make the songs «more active» but mostly to give himself a stature. A title.
» READ ALSO – Nekfeu: «I’m trying to break the codes of rap
Hyperproductif, the rapper has published 52 pieces in 2017. Jason Aniel, Terry Piekar
All part of the complex relationship between the young man with his father, a graduate from Normale Sup. «You will not, it is a statistic», said one day to his son, who mentioned this phrase in the title King of the World , in the opening of his latest EP Internet . «My father has long destroyed morally, admits Lord Esperanza. The name Lord comes from there. It is a shell that I created to hide my lack of confidence in me.» As to his mother, «love coach, she is placed on France Inter to talk about Valentine’s day,» she biberonne to psychoanalysis and the concept of the unconscious, «since [its] 14 years».
It is in this history that is the basis for all the complexity of the rapper paris. In a series of ego trips spread on beats trap inflamed throughout its various pieces, it is called»arrogant gifted» and boasts about not having «idols, just competitors». All of this would be but a mask, fashioned to hide a face more dark. The second artificial skin of a type that doubt of her love, of success, of fame, but that was «not ready» to talk about it before. Today, this is the case, his first album to be released on may 24, being placed under the sign of confession «open heart,» repeated the young man.
Rap and mysticism
«It is rare that I write texts happy…»
Would there be reached early as the age of maturity? «I think he understood where he wanted to go, ensures the rapper Eden Dillinger, with whom Lord Esperanza often share guest appearances. Now that he knows his way, I find it much more sincere in each of its interventions. Before, he was looking for his words and could sometimes appear arrogant by leaving too many cultural references.» His moods scribbled on scraps of paper, Lord Esperanza no longer wants to keep them to himself. When he mentions the composition, the adornment of oral l'»child of the century» takes on the airs of a quasi-melancholic: «Sometimes I write texts happy with major chords, but it is rare that I write texts happy…» Black Flag and Ground of stars , his greatest success, reflect this state of mind, between slow, ballad, rap, and a certain mysticism.
» READ ALSO – Roméo Elvis, the soft rap of man chocolate
This mix of genres was fitting like a glove to Lord Esperanza. He admits that these experiments are better placed away from the trap, «the codes are aging too fast» for his taste. «I prefer pieces that are not frozen in terms of production,» he explains. The securities in which singing predominates. Nevertheless, Major Minor, the producer with whom the rapper is going to record its first album, says. Nothing is fixed in Lord Esperanza. «His character can’t exist without the duality, advance the beatmaker. The two entities will dissolve gradually and become more and more homogenous, but no not going to disappear.»
As if the origin of Lord Esperanza – author of news as soon its 11 years and whose parents were regular visits to the opera house – was also his destiny, the young man who has exchanged the style capillary Nekfeu for a cut less furnished tends to diversify its activities. It is already the pen steady for several figures in the rap and of the French song, in addition to producing young artists under his label, Paramour. «To be an artist, it is to be complete, not just sing and rap, focuses on the one who, precisely, does not consider herself yet as an artist, despite the persistent impression that he still has a shot to advance. Lord Esperanza is not sure of anything, if not of his love «visceral» for the rap and the writing, nourished as much by the question as by his loved ones: «When I stop doubting, it means that my entourage will not dare to tell me things, and it will be very problematic.»
● check out Ola , the new video clip of Lord Esperanza:
Eric Nahon IPJ
Cinema, theatre, music… The student-journalists of IPJ, Institute of Journalism of the University of Paris Dauphine, offer their views on current cultural events. A publication in partnership with Le Figaro culture.
