Twenty-one minutes and twenty seconds of music. You have to admit it: All these bitten nailsthe fourth solo project of JeanJassis short. But that was without counting on his deep mastery of rap formats in 2024: as a good consumer of neo-boom bap, the double J knows that a short record can be a full record – we happily refer you to this paper on Earl Sweatshirt who dissected the exercise better than I ever will. Thus, for his first foray into a format which is reminiscent of the one favored by his idol The AlchemistJeanJass wants to prove to the world that he needs barely more than a quarter of an hour to create a product that replay value worthy from his bedside albums – The Infamous, Marcberg et Evil eye most likely. Pretension? No, since the content demonstrates it without forcing: he is indeed the French-speaking goat that he thinks he is.
Car All these bitten nails is, from the first to the last title, terribly personal. You just have to take a look at the credits to understand that here, Jass the Magnificent is, so to speak, alone in his studio – a co-producer of Dee Eyeanother ofnext to and the miracles of Jules Fradet to mastering. Alone facing his notebook of rhymes, alone facing his own productions, but armed with his debonair flow, the Belgian continues to trust his vision and prove that it is not for nothing if he and his colleague Caballero manage to last over time: their relationship with music and productivity allows them extremely diversified modes of expression – mixtapes High and Fine Herbs or the series Zushiboyz attest to this. With rap as their only compass, JJ & Caba have no trouble executing these splits that distinguish good rappers from real artists.
We know many who must be jealous of the quality of JJ’s production on All these bitten nails : behind his machines, the man proves that he is an exceptional beatmaker, capable of materializing many emotions without spin, as well as controlling those bouts of fever that he loves so much. With his flawless musicality, sometimes rivaling that of his Cainri counterparts, All these bitten nails looks like a really good producer’s madness. And too bad if we sometimes have the impression that JeanJass took more pleasure in producing these titles than in rapping them: it’s up to the listener to take the time to tame this new JeanJass which strings together dark scenes, with a special mention for the sad guitar of “Honolulu” (great mourning piece) or the very Queensbridge energy of “Olympien”. Of the nine tracks on the tracklisting, there is only “TEMA”, with its crazy piano loop and its Gauzewhich stands out, making us realize that the joker JJ is now more in his place on a compilation High & Fines Herbes than on his own records.
Some will say that Carolo offers his roughest effort here, and it is true that for an artist who has always accustomed us to a certain freshness, All these bitten nails can sometimes be destabilizing. But we now have enough listens to confirm that we have here one of the most interesting projects of his entire discography, one which makes us understand that JeanJass ages better than the vast majority of his colleagues. Perhaps more monochrome and gloomy than usual, the whole nevertheless lacks neither charm nor urgency. But to be able to see it, you will probably have to be a little more fan than the others, or keep in mind these last words: if All these bitten nails is deserved, believe us, it ends up repaying it a hundredfold.
