25 year old Belgium/Rwandan rapper Stroame, real name Paul Van Havers, has been driving the dancefloors and airwaves crazy with his infectious dance track Alors On Danse, despite it only just being release here in the UK Alors On Dance has already shot to number one in eleven countries across Europe, his Mike Skinner inspired  video has had over eleven million views on youtube and Kanye West has only gone and jumped on the remix so Nardene Scott decided to find out a little more about this French speaking rapper who’s taken over the European charts this summer.

Hey, How you doing?

Yeah I’m good you know, okay.

Your new single Alors On Danse has been a viral success with 11+ million views and counting. Did you ever think when you made the record at home it would be as big as it’s turned out?

No, not ever at all! Of course I never imagined this type of success and if someone would have come to me over a year ago and told me that I would have this type of success, I would never have done the same music. I think I had this success because it has been a natural progression.

Last year you released youtube videos on how to make a hit so you’re into this whole social networking/platforms. How did you come up with the idea of uploading those videos?

It was my manager’s idea he thought it was a good way to promote my music so I was like okay, I didn’t want to do  a reality TV show. So, as you know, I’m not like a big star and I said I prefer to be more human and closer to the people. You know something less obvious,  I prefer to be more modest, that’s why I did this kind of video, where people can understand how I make my music. The objective was to bring people into the music that didn’t necessarily work in the industry but thought the process was interesting.

The video for Alors On Danse is pretty crazy but it fits the track perfectly, I know you went to film school. How important do you think it is for artists to have a say in the videos?

Of course, I think it’s tiring to do that because you have to be everywhere and to control everything but I think that when you write your own music,  you can’t be just a singer or rapper without thinking about your outfit, your image, you know what I mean. Today, if you are an artist you have to be involved in your work and your work is not only your music today so you have to involve yourself in all of the work

Lyrically you’ve been compared to English producer/MC Mike Skinner, have you heard of him?

Of course, I was really influenced by him and in particular for the video it was Blinded By The Lights if you compare both my video and his video it’s similar, not too similar. What I liked in the video was the reality, you know, no fake dreams, no fake American dreams, just the reality and just what people actually live. I wanted it to be like the documentaries you get on electronic music and that’s what I like in his work.

What other artists influence you?

Like Kanye West, Technotronic too you know Pump Up The Jam that was a big classic in Belgium and New Beat, really eclectic, you know. You can’t say, I’m influenced by just one type of music, like only by hip hop, for example like Lil Wayne and those kind of people cannot be influenced by only one type of music, it would be weird if one day you said you were only influenced by hip hop music and that’s all, I would never believe it.

Since the success of the single, what can people expect from the upcoming album Cheese and why did you choose to call it that?

The name of Cheese is from when you say cheese when you take a picture and you put a big smile on your face and that’s why I put this kind of title on my album. For me its just because if you’re sad or you’re happy, you just have to take your position you have to accurate and say cheese you know,  its not reality and I don’t think that life is really happy, life is not really sad but life is life, and you need problems to live and without problems life is not life so you have to just put a big smile on your face. I don’t know if it’s a weapon, I don’t know if its therapy, the both you need I think. For the album the musical influence are like 90’s pop stuff and French folk music.

I want you to keep the meaning of the music, the lyrics and the influences all together. I do not have any collaborations on the album because I don’t want people to say, oh yeah you had this kind of support or you were successful because of this name and I prefer to present my own identity, my own personality and after that, I would be interested in doing a collaboration to create something else with another artist.

What lyrically is the album going to be based on?

Just talking about real life, real life has some problems of course and I think its possible to dance to electronic music of course but to end up with lyrics with meaning. Also to always not be fake and thinking about the life you’ll never have, so the life with money, you know like a life without problems. I prefer it to be like your medicine, you know so you can feel it and try to escape the problems.

What’s the hip hop scene like in Belgium and France and do you think the success of your single will change things for hip hop music there?

I’m not pretentious so I cannot say that but it helps me to grow up only for me I don’t know if other people need that. If I can help some other people then of course I would be really proud of it and it would be really good but I think people like Kanye West or The Streets all influence, you know. I’m not the first to do this kind of mix and I cannot be the last. I think the hip hop scene is just nothing in Belgium, it’s realy really difficult because the Belgian market is really small so its difficult to earn money live thanks to your music. So you have to go to France and the problem is that in France you need some credibility if you’re a rapper or a hip hop singer you have to have credibilty to come from the streets. That’s the problem, they think you need to be a gangsta to be a musician and I think it’s just bullsh*t. I think that people understand that music is just music it’s not life, it’s not real.  

What can we expect from you next obviously you will be busy promoting the single and album but are you going to be gigging over here soon?

Of course, it will be an honour to be in your country because it represents a big scene, a really open minded scene who are really involved in the music. I’ve always had a respect for the English because you are so crazy to put music which we cannot play in Belgium on the radio and that’s really good because people are not afraid to listen to like instrumentals and even on very mainstream radios and we dont have that in France or Belgium.

Any last words?

Thank you and it’s an honour to be on your pages, I never imagined this happening so quickly and yes thank you very much.

Stromae’s hit singleAlors On Danse is out now as well as his album Cheese.

You can check out his blog here www.stromae.net/blog/ and also follow Stromae on Twitter @Stromae

Tags: Electro, Folk, Hip Hop, Interviews, Kanye West, Mike Skinner, Stromae