It is the end of Week 4 of term, and nearly the end of the month. Temperatures are falling. Autumnal rains are starting, season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.
It is time for music.
The small selection that follows below was made for FREN 101 students, as a starting-point for a group project in which students select a song or songs in French, choose a favourite line, read it out, and explain (in English, as they’re beginners) their choice — be that a whole line or a word, or even a sound …
Here is some recent music in French, and some places to look for new and emerging musicians:
- 2023-25: Kafou Muzik, Antje Ziethen’s Francophone music radio show on UBC’s CiTR
- ”Best of” selections from the Francos de Montréal annual summer music festival (click on the image/year, that links to video excerpts and artists)
- At the 2025 Francos de Montréal, a personal recommendation: a very new talented group, these guys can rhyme! Mercure
- Francos de Montréal, concerts this year – this gives some ideas about possible artists to listen to; GIMS or Cœur de Pirate, for example
- Nikamo Productions: label / production company / artist collective, organised by Samian (Quebec / Abitibiwinni)
- La Fête de l’Humanité (12-14 September 2025): one of the major music festivals in France, sponsored and organised by the newspaper L’Humanité; with other events too —talks, etc.—and musicians who aren’t Francophone or necessarily singing in French. See also: their archived past concerts, look them up on YouTube for more archived concert footage, etc.
- As ever, Wikipedia is also your friend: if you already like a genre, look it up to find a French-expression artist in it; if you like a specific artist, look them up, see the links (basic info box with photo near top of page) for their genres, go to that genre page or area, look for Francophone artists there …
- French-speaking/-singing artists in the 2024 Paris Olympics opening and closing ceremonies: for example, another personal recommendation, the fabulous Aya Nakamura
Not in that student list, but occasionally appearing in classes over the course of the year, are some favourite antiques in the lyrical word-arts from our whole grand noble age of recorded music: Jacques Brel, MC Solaar, Mano Negra, Renaud, IAM, Diam’s, Soprano, Fonky Family, 3e Œil, Stromae; and older venerables, justified ancients from medieval song to opera, and songs without words from Debussy tone-poems to Jean-Michel Jarre and Jean-Michel Lorgère (not options for this particular exercise, as it requires the presence of words).
Related to that student list: Samian’s Nikamo Productions is ever growing, a joy to see such lively artistic flourishing in the ten years since his Radio-Canada interview-portrait. That piece featured in class slides a couple of years ago, accompanying a previous version of the project (not just music in French); like this year, the introductory session and time for the first student work on the project—figuring out groups and choosing songs—fell close to 30 September, National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
LINKS FROM SCREENSHOTS ABOVE AND SEASONAL PLAYLIST
https://ici.radio-canada.ca/info/videos/1-7258978/portrait-samian
https://genius.com/Samian-genocide-lyrics
Next, a song for next week’s remembrancing and reflection, from nearly twenty years ago; reflecting in turn on events at the turn of this century. Samian and Loco Locass, “La paix des braves.”
Here’s a version with the lyrics …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p98RUOHUmFc
https://genius.com/Samian-la-paix-des-braves-lyrics
A last song for today. From 2010, this is a song for all who love languages and language and words, who value and treasure their beauty and wonder and humanity—warty history and all, knots and toughness, scars and open wounds—and language’s capacious generous openness to futuristic imagineering resistance: “Les mots”
Juliet O’Brien 