There’s a refrain on Made in Paris the place Pi’erre Bourne repeats, “J’adore bitch, pardon my French” 16 instances. One other tune referred to as “La Loi, C’est La Loi” has an artificial accordion line that appears like a token French man strolling into an episode of Spongebob. Twelve out of 17 tune titles are in French. Get it?
That is “The Pi’erre Bourne Album You’ve Come to Count on: Paris Version.” Pi’erre can nonetheless pen a Pi’erre tune filled with dazzling manufacturing and endearingly unusual writing that can make you ask, “Is that this good or unhealthy?” (If heads have been debating your rap expertise for six years, likelihood is you’re good—simply ask Silkk the Shocker.) There are hookup tales, outdated flames, dates at Crimson Lobster, a reference to the “soss financial system” that he by no means elaborates on. Barely a minute into the album, Pi’erre compares his dick to a Twinkie.
It’s all good enjoyable for those who’ve purchased into Pi’erre’s solo profession, however that is additionally why Made in Paris feels regressive. Nearly each tune might’ve been plucked from the reducing room ground of an earlier Pi’erre album; some actually have been. It’s a cut-and-paste meeting that doesn’t add sufficient soss to the catalog to justify its existence.
Let’s face it: Pi’erre Bourne’s most likely obtained some Illmatic syndrome. The place do you go after making each among the previous decade’s defining beats for Playboi Carti and the vibe-out traditional The Lifetime of Pi’erre 4? On his earlier album, the polarizing Good Film, Pi’erre painted a extra advanced self-portrait, tapping into the dancehall he soaked up on lifelong journeys to Belize to convey new shades of grey in life. (His uncle, who seems on the Made in Paris intro, was the late reggae and dancehall artist Cell Malachi.) Good Film was a bizarre, uneven album, scorching and stormy like a New York summer time; it got here out throughout COVID and is usually considered his worst, however I’ve grown to understand how its stilted, four-on-the-floor simulacra maps onto his mundane relationship drama.
Solid towards the response to that report, Made in Paris looks like a course correction, leaning exhausting on Pi’erre’s tried-and-true sounds—lion roars, 808s that take in all of the airspace, somber chords that pulse like a heartbeat—because it settles into its groove. Gaudy transitions, too, though uneven mixing prevents them from touchdown fairly proper. The 2 singles “Blocs” and “Pop” have been boring selections to advertise the report, each staid and inoffensive in comparison with the majority of the fabric right here. Neither is as sticky as “Temps de Chasse,” a ballad filled with scrumptious keyboard stabs the place our Parisian expat delivers the hilariously nonsensical quip, “The grass ain’t greener on the opposite facet/Lady, you understand it’s purple in my place.”
