He sheds a large tear, his eyes blaming you for his unfounded misery. Yet this image that looks to you from a poster more suited to advertise cheesy R&B is thankfully far from the truth. With an established decade-long presence in French hip-hop, Oxmo Puccino is made of the stuff that survives.
No wonder this Mali-born artist calls himself – among other names – the “Cactus of Siberia. The ground at Sawy Culture Wheel’s Wisdom Hall resounded on Wednesday night with audiences thumping their feet to Puccino’s crisp lyrics.
Born Abdoulaye Diarra in Mali’s town of Ségou, the artist moved to Paris at an early age. It was in the unforgiving streets of the 19th district that the hip-hop artist called Oxmo Puccino was born, creating poetry out of violence.
Rapping with the French underground, Puccino first made his recorded debut with “Pucc. Fiction on a compilation called L342. “Opéra Puccino marked the artist’s solo debut in 1998. His consequent productions, “L’Amour Est Mort (Love is Dead, 2001) and “Cactus de Sibérie (Siberian Cactus, 2004) granted Puccino increased success and popularity.
Launching in yet another musical direction, Puccino signed on to jazz label Blue Note in 2006, putting together a group called the Jazzbastards to record “Lipopette Bar. Like his previous album where flowers grow amid the thorns of cacti, songs in his latest album “L’Armé de Paix (Army of Peace, 2009) temper misfortune with awareness of the smallest blessings.
Heads in the audience shake side to side, as lyrics of “Soleil du Nord (Northern Sun) cherish friends with a cigarette that carry you through the Parisian winter. The final words of Puccino songs always carry a signature truth that sums up life as he sees it, “It seems that poverty is less terrible in the sun.
Many of the songs Puccino sings are for a collective “nous, singing for a community that braves planting itself in hostile environments.
Other songs the singer is launched into a secret mission, where he takes audiences amid stage-smoke and kaleidoscopic light, asking them to spell out his name “Mon Nom C’est O-X-M-O. Catcalls and hoots issue forth from the crowd willed into a world of aliases and reinvention.
Midway through the concert, the crowd lost their adherence to the chairs, preferring to dance to the music that called for it all along anyway. “I have come to declare peace, sang the rapper and his bassist.
Backed by an expert group of instrumentalists, Puccino also sang his heart out about love or lack thereof. He speaks of an estranged love in “Je t’Connaissais Pas (I Don’t Recognize You), of the complications of jealousy in “L’Amour et Jalousie.
Unlike the stuff of your typical love song, this chap challenges you to go ahead and leave him if you’re not happy in “Quitte Moi.
Packed full to the brim, the audiences clap Puccino back to the stage again and again, as he delivers three encores. Puccino rallies all in the audience into standing up to dance as he basks in the victory of his army of peace.
And after the extortionist pricing of the Ziad Rahbani concert, the low-cost high-quality entertainment from an artist of Puccino’s caliber inspires you to raise the white flag at Sawy at last.
For more information on the artist, visit http://www.oxmo.net/