Stromae
Paul Van Haver, a Brussels-born son of a Flemish mother and a Rwandan Tutsi father killed in the 1994 genocide, built Stromae into French-language pop's most inventive voice of the 2010s. He fuses Belgian house and new-beat electronics with the storytelling backbone of French chanson and the cadence of the hip-hop he grew up rapping, using deceptively danceable tracks to carry lyrics about absent fathers, depression, and colonial memory.
Stromae has repeatedly named Brel as his single biggest influence, saying he hopes listeners hear French chanson in his lyrics and admiring how Brel "dared to take risks" on stage. That shows up as narrative, character-driven songwriting and a willingness to let vulnerability crack through an otherwise polished performance.
listen forPut on Brel's raw, mounting confession "Ne me quitte pas" and then Stromae's "L'enfer" — both strip the beat back to let a single voice spiral through private anguish, trading dance-pop gloss for the same bare, theatrical ache Brel built his catalog on.
Stromae has said hip-hop "was like school" for him between ages 16 and 21, naming The Notorious B.I.G. among the rap models he studied before he ever started producing electronic tracks. The pull toward dense, rhythmically precise verses over a groove traces back to that apprenticeship.
listen forLine up Biggie's effortlessly unhurried, pocket-perfect flow on "Juicy" against the rapid, tongue-twisting verses of Stromae's "Bâtard" — different tempos, same instinct for riding a beat with clipped, rhythmically exact rapped delivery instead of straight singing.
Stromae has said the Congolese rumba he heard as a child through his father's African side of the family "rocked the whole of Africa," a description that matches Le Grand Kallé's 1960 anthem "Indépendance Cha Cha," one of the genre's first pan-African hits. Stromae has credited that childhood exposure to Congolese rumba, alongside son cubano, with shaping the polyrhythmic percussion under his electronic productions.
listen forHear the loping guitar-and-percussion lilt of Le Grand Kallé's "Indépendance Cha Cha" and then the layered African percussion Stromae builds under "Papaoutai" — the electronic surface is new, but the rhythmic pulse underneath descends from the same rumba source.