French rapper Josman was at MTelus Tuesday evening (and will be again this evening) as part of the Francos de Montréal. Despite a full house and high-quality screenings, the concert was littered with lengths and did not meet expectations.
Before starting the critical aspect of this article, I would like to mention that I have been a big fan of Josman’s music since its beginnings. I never thought I would go see one of his shows and be so disappointed, but here we are. I therefore allow myself to use the “I” at certain points in this article given my disappointment.
After making the audience wait 45 minutes in the heat, Josman finally appeared on stage. He started the show with Lottoa track from his first album JO$. Starting a concert with a song released in 2018 was already a relatively questionable choice since he released an album in 2023 for which he had not yet visited Montreal.
He then continued with Ahgars!a song taken from his album MANreleased in 2022. Josman then continued to continue with pieces that were still not those of his most recent album, like BAG (2020), In the void (2016), At the end (2017) and others, to finally give us a more recent piece after 10 tracks.
After a sequence of songs that was still not very effective, the lights were briefly closed, making it sound like an encore. The rapper returns to the stage, performs two more songs, then completely blacks out again. He returns a second time, interprets XS And I like, with once again too much Autotune. The lights close again and as if by magic, after thanking Montreal twice, he comes back again!
He performed three songs, stopping the last twice because he found the audience too tired. At least it all ended on a high of energy for the audience who were on the floor.
It is becoming more and more obvious that a staging involving only the rapper and his DJ is no longer sufficient to offer a quality show. Particularly when the rapper in question doesn’t have the greatest stage presence, interacts little or not with his audience and uses so much autotune that some songs aren’t even recognizable.
The choice of the sequence of songs was also disappointing, since we have the impression that he repeats the same songs year after year, this time adding only 3 or 4 songs from his most recent album. The songs chosen had no cohesion between them and were for the most part so strong in bass that you could hear absolutely nothing else.
Autotune was really one of the major points of this show and it’s an extremely shame considering the fact that Josman has a very beautiful singing voice. Having seen him live in much smaller venues with no or very little vocal modification, he did magnificently well.
A phenomenon that I have observed over the years by going to see mainly rap concerts is the difference between a show where very particular attention is paid to the staging and artistic direction and shows where we assume that the presence of the rapper is enough to satisfy the public. Josman simply walked back and forth between the courtyard side and the garden side of the stage, just reciting his words. It quickly falls flat, even in songs that are more upbeat.
I would have loved to have enjoyed this show, but for all the reasons listed above, it was otherwise.
