MC Solaar

Francophone hip hop and rap artist MC Solaar makes a rare outing in the UK with a three-day residency at Camden's Jazz Café. Responsible for making the French exchanges of hundreds of British teenagers worthwhile, MC Solaar made his mainstream breakthrough with 1994's poetic Prose Combat and is one of the only French rappers to find commercial success in the American-dominated global hip hop market. Born in Senegal to parents of Chadian origin, Solaar - real name Claude M'Baali - moved to the Parisian suburbs when he was just six months old. Now 40, the former philosophy post-graduate student is on to album number seven, a melange of styles entitled Chapitre 7, which includes the whimsically titled single Da Vinci Claude and the catchy Carpe Diem. Expect the Jazz Café to be filled to the rafters for what is MC Solaar's first London show in five years. And let's face it, rapping in French - rhyming 'Budapest' with 'Gare de l'Est' - sounds so much more poetic and lyrical than trying the same in English.