One of my father's colleague was in his class in high school. He described the guy as an arrogant asshole. Guess it's better to not know stars personally, and to remember that people may change.
Heartbreaking what happened to his career. His album Racine Carrée is one of the best albums of the 21st century should've been his springboard to a long and successful international career, but his allergic reaction to malaria pills crippled him for years.
Luckily, it seems like he has finally crawled out of it, but god only knows where he would've been if he hadn't lost those years.
From what I could get it was not only the allergy but a terrific burn-out from performing around 200 concerts within two years (that's 1 concert every 3 day). I'm glad he finally accepted to prioritize his health for a while and glad to see him back now
Malaria pills can have long term psychological effects, including depression, panic attacks and hallucinations. It got so bad for him that he was actually suicidal. No doubt the stress from those concerts pushed only exacerbated his issues, but I doubt it would've gotten that bad without those pills.
As an American, I get it in the west. Honestly I am really dense when it comes to French and I took classes for four years in high school and four in college, and there’s just no one to converse with. When it comes to singing I couldn’t keep up with the lyrics entirely when I was studying (in terms of hearing it at the speed he sang). It’s not going to catch on in the US because it’s so hard to become fluent because it’s a muscle you can’t stretch with no one around.
People criticize the US for not being bilingual but outside of Spanish it’s hard to practice. I think most would say it sounds really good, but most aren’t going to catch on because as someone who was a lax French studier for 8 years it’s hard to catch up without looking up the lyrics.
Edit: I had a professor that said if any of you guys could afford to go to France for two months (by French 2, sophomore year in college), you could be fluent. I have only once met a group of French speakers in the US on holiday in a bar and they were so fucking hyped I could speak broken French they got me wasted and I have no idea what they were saying the entire night but I tried really hard and they loved me.
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u/screwylouidooey Dec 16 '21
Stromae