There is often a sense of one-uppance in Kalash Criminel’s music, a desire to show that he could easily bury swathes of rival rappers in every meaning of the term. Once again, Sélection naturelle demonstrates this unremitting confrontational approach that gives rise to a hard, violent and terribly authentic music. “At the start, it wasn’t about making it, it was about shock / dark like making love in a coffin”, he raps on the first track, Insta Twitter. The message is clear. While the album starts off all guns blazing, there are also some more thoughtful tracks like Droga, featuring 26keuss and produced by Yakes. He jumps on the drill wave with Shooter, a track in which he samples an extract from the film Shooter (its French version Tireur d’élite as is customary for French rappers). Kalash makes the crucial decision of combining tradition with contemporary trends. He also invites along some heavyweights like Jul on Dans la zone and Damso on the excellent But en or (where the two men settle some scores), but most notably Niska on Tu paniques. It’s the perfect collaboration featuring his modus operandi: verbal attacks, violence as well as an unexpected comment on Africa and its centuries of exploitation. Sélection naturelle is similar to the album that preceded it, La Fosse aux lions (the lions’ den), in that Kalash proves that in addition to his ability to use flat, hardcore and shouted flows like on Turn Up (featuring Nekfeu), his art is not lacking. He succeeds in constantly putting his lyrics first through simple and clear elocution. Kalash Criminel is certainly a man of words. © Brice Miclet/Qobuz