When you listen to rap, you are hearing the words of the nation’s youth. This is your experience when listening to the debut album by Geneva rapper Mairo: “LA FIEV”. The title is inspired by “Fièvre à Columbus University”, the French title of the 1995 film “Higher Learning”, in which black and white students tackle issues involving money, safety and sexuality.
Mairo himself sees the term “fiev” as synonymous with awareness. Romai Tesfaldet (“Mairo” in French verlan slang) was born in Neuchâtel on 5 July 1995 and is of Eritrean extraction. His father came to Switzerland as a refugee, before becoming a social worker as well as the owner of a small restaurant in Geneva. This is where he met his wife, who is also Eritrean and works as an early childhood educator.
A few months ago, their rapper son came to his dad’s humble eatery, the Meskerem, to premiere his debut album. “The queue was at least 200 metres long,” his father recalls with emotion. His son got his first taste of the mic as a teenager, and went on to train as a sound engineer.
Mairo’s production has pulled in the listeners and been lauded by the press. “Mairo chiefly works in a studio that he built himself. This setup means he can make music the way he wants to,” according to the magazine of the www.hytrape.com website. The rapper, who divides his time between Geneva and Paris, works in tandem with his “brother” Hopital, who creates the sounds, rhythms and musical collages. Hopital also produced the album. Mairo’s lyrics cover everything from personal issues to wider social themes. “I’ll bring her wads of cash instead of flowers”, he chants, concerned about the intentions of people in show business. “They want you to be the goose that lays golden eggs,” he says.
The young man, who started his career with the rappers of the Geneva posse SuperWak Clique, does not hesitate to lay bare even his deepest wounds. “I’d never thought my folks would live apart, or even come to hate each other,” he sings in “Paramount”. “Hold me, mum” Mairo asks, conjuring an image of his mother sleeping on the living room couch. The flow (the rhythm of the words) is fast. The diction is impeccable. There are cryptic slang terms and swallowed syllables.
All that matters, though, is the sound of the words. The musical collages are eclectic. One track features an Eritrean pop song from the 1960s. Another has the crackle of Radio Londres playing over a rap background. “When it’s your turn to speak, you just can’t shut up”, the artist warns on “Antidote ou venin” (“Antidote or poison”), one of the 13 tracks on this Swiss rap opus.
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