K.Maro Just Wants a Femme Like U
20 years ago, the Canadian-Lebanese singer K.Maro released his only hit "Femme Like U (Donne-moi ton corps)".
This is the story of a pure one-hit-wonder. Released on May 8, 2004, Femme Like U (Donne-moi ton corps) was the first single announcing the second album of a relative newcomer in French R&B: K-Maro.
Born in Beyrouth, Lebanon in 1980, Cyril Kamar emigrated with his family to Montreal when he was around 10. Quickly invested in making music, he starts rapping at 15 and releases his first album with LMSD, a short-lived duo from Montreal with another rapper called Vaï. It sounds like any rap band from this era.
After four years and two LP, the duo broke up and K.Maro created his own company, K.Pone Inc., to manage his solo career, starting with a mostly-forgotten first album. But in 2004, K.Maro already releases his second one, la Good Life, on East West Records. And it’s finally a success.
East West Records has a peculiar history. Created in 1955 to release just one song by Bill Haley’s musicians playing under another name, the label was put in the ice until 1990. There’s no real concept behind the catalogue. It includes a bunch of guitar guys (AC/DC, Dream Theater, Pantera) as well as black American rappers like Missy Elliott or MC Lyte. And since 2015, it’s focusing on “heritage” British acts like Boyzone, the Coors or Simply Red. During its long life, East West Records has been eaten several time by many companies (Elektra, Atlantic, the Warner Music Group, etc.) but the name and the unsatisfying artistic direction remained. It’s not a surprise la Good Life ended up where no one knew where to put it.
The album was preceded by a first single, Femme Like U (Donne-Moi Ton Corps) [trad: Woman Like U (Give Your Body)]. The title is a mouthful but it helps the listener to notice K.Maro’s nationality with his amazing ability to switch so seamlessly from French and English.
The song is written by Kamar himself and produced with the help of Louis Côté, a producer who will be later known for his work with Shy’m, a glamourous R&B singer. Shy’m will get her big break thanks to a duo with K.Maro on his third album. We’ll probably have another occasion to talk about Shy’m.
You might not know this: the chorus repeating “Femme like youuuuu” is sung by a Canadian synthpop singer from the 80’s. Born in 1961 (19 years before K-Maro), Nancy Martinez was already a small celebrity in Canada. She released no less than 8 albums under her name, including the very good Not Just the Girl Next Door in 1986. The lead single For Tonight reached the number 32 on the Hot 100 in the US. It’s a banger.
K.Maro doesn’t rap too much on Femme Like U. He only has two verses. The rest of the song is devoted to the chorus sung by K.Maro and Nancy Martinez from the point of view of a male and female performers. Ultimately, Femme like U sounds like a love song but is mostly about onstage chemistry, even though there’s a hint of romantic or sexual relationship between the two singing partners.
When we're on stage shining under the same star
When your voice meets mine, when I've got your soul in my veins.
The video for the song leans heavily into the love story with a triangle involving K.Maro, his crush and her gangster boyfriend. There’s a lot of dancing women (but fully dressed because it’s Canada) in a fully-lit night club, a final brawl and the beginning of a car chase. There’s a lot going on for a 4-minute song. Sadly, they replaced Nancy Martinez by a younger actress.
The song blew up almost immediately, entering the top ten a couple of weeks after its release and staying there for almost 5 months. The song even reached number one in August for one week. In the end, the single sold around 2 million copies and was number one in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Hungary… But not in Canada where it barely made a dent in the charts.
More than that it became a cultural phenomenon, a dance anthem, a summer hit. By 2004, this particular brand of Rap/R&B was already obsolete in most of the world. For context: in 2004, the world’s biggest song was Yeah! by Usher, briefly putting crunk as the word biggest genre. But France was resisting the urge to evolve and gave a lot of recognition to a string of mellow R&B singers: the aforementioned Shy’m, but also Leslie, Corneille, Nâdiya, M. Pokora, Willy Denzey…
K.Maro never replicated Femme Like U success: La Good Life’s second single, Crazy, sadly stopped at second place behind a Dalida’s cover from the Star Academy. An atrocious rendition from the whole cast, including the late Grégory Lemarchal, the doomed winner of season 4, who was diagnosed since his birth with cystic fibrosis. Maybe one day, I’ll talk about Star Academy at length: it’s France most well known talent show, with a complex and shady history.
K.Maro’s third record, Million Dollar Boy (the one with Shy’m), was released a year later but only went gold. Since 2010, K.Maro has mostly been focused on his business ventures: a nightclub in Montreal, a restaurant in Miami, a record label, so many talent agencies… He tried a music comeback through a new alias Kamar & The Bugged Mind Crew, combining his love for fashion, visuals and music. It’s not that bad but I immediately forgot about it as soon as it ended.
These days, Cyril Kamar is really showing his business acumen: he’s been focusing on the celebration of his 20-year one-hit-wonder. If you want to celebrate too, you can book a ticket for the 20-year anniversary concert in Paris on May 30. It’s starting at 45 €.
He recently published an autobiography that I won’t read. But someone at GQ France had to do it to interview the guy. And apparently the book is quite intimate. The legacy of the song is heavily discussed in the interview. Cyril Kamar says his song can still be heard today in various party settings (“from the spaghetti’s fair to Parisian hipster nights”). And he’s right: it’s pretty common to hear Femme Like U in a party organized by millennials or younger peeps. You can see an example here in Hippocrate, a TV show about hospital workers. Kamar also claims he was a precursor in the bling-bling ideology of showing off your richness in rap music. He was definitely not.
I’m not particularly fond of this song. I hated it 20 years ago because I was an edgy snob and I have no interest for it now. But I understand the nostalgia around it, reminiscing to some people the dangers of the summer of 2004: our first (illegal) gay marriage, France refusal to participate in the Iraq invasion and Lance Armstrong’s sixth Tour de France in a row.
The song, like every other song, has been covered by Julien Doré. But the better and most famous cover is from Cœur de Pirate, a fellow Canadian pop musician.