“I can’t wait to play at home”: Toulouse rapper LMA at Metronum on January 24

“I’m afraid to make choices, afraid to be me.” These are the first words of the album by Toulouse rapper LMA, released last September. At just 27 years old, the artist, born in Montpellier, signed his first project called “Little Prince”. “I talk about things that happened to me from the age of 8 to 18,” he explains. “That’s the age of the first times.” The idea: to question one’s adult flaws, but with children’s eyes.

Beneath very cheerful song titles, like “Heureux” or “Comptine”, hide much darker themes. LMA talks about the death of his father, domestic violence, drug addiction. “The idea was to say harsh things, but gently,” explains the artist. “Innocently talking about trashy things helps avoid a moralizing tone.”

Opening up about mental health

“To become a man you must first heal from your childhood”, launches LMA in the title “Battements”. By trying to heal his inner child in his songs, the Toulouse rapper places himself in the lineage of artists who speak openly about mental health, such as Stromae or Gringe. Moreover, after a meeting with the latter during a show, LMA performed several of his opening acts.

Also read:
“His fame is playing tricks on him…” Rapper SCH eagerly awaited at the Zénith in Toulouse

“I’m not a fan of phrases like ‘the night brings advice’. Sometimes, when we’re in trouble, we have to talk, exorcise. If some people can’t confide in anyone, I tell myself that hearing these words can help good, even if I don’t replace therapy and as a man, it’s sometimes even more complicated, because we are required to be indestructible.”

“They say you shouldn’t cry when you’re a real man. I say we’re good guys with huge hearts. Silence and fear gangrene us,” he raps in “Soon” . He does not hesitate to shake up the codes of masculinity, particularly when he appears in make-up and wears earrings in the music video for “Comptine”.

Start music with writing

Maël, his real first name, began music by writing texts in his notebooks. “I started when I was a teenager, during my French classes,” he remembers. “I was talking about my life.” At the time, a trend was growing on the YouTube platform: freestyle rap videos. It inspires him, just like the performances of Mac Miller, or Oxmo Puccino.

Also read:
Virgile Goller in concert with Musicœur

At 15, he started a group with friends and gave his first concerts. “We were doing acoustic rap,” he says. The following year, he even won the Claude Nougaro writing prize. “At the time, I didn’t know the artist,” he confesses, smiling. And for good reason: LMA only set foot in the Pink City a few years later.

After a period away from music, dealing with addictions, Maël moved to Toulouse in 2020. It was there that he began to take music seriously. Because this path has not always been obvious. In his title “24 years”, he admits: “I doubted being an artist.”

The Metronum stage

“I was passionate about music as a listener, but I thought that to make a living from it you had to be a superstar.” Meetings with people in the field will give him his footing, and make him an artist almost “by force of circumstances”. In the Pink City, he met the beatmakers and composers Cydot and Nitram, who today accompany him in the studio.

Also read:
Rapper Werenoi again champion of album sales in France in 2024

But they will also be with him on stage at the Metronum on Friday January 24. A place he describes as “the place to be”. A date which therefore sounds like a big step, and gives him the opportunity to get a little closer to his Toulouse audience. “I’m stressed, super happy and proud at the same time. I’ve done around sixty concerts, but too rarely in Toulouse, I can’t wait to play at home,” he concludes.