Antoine Valentinelli, an elegant 30-year-old staker, has just entered a restaurant on a busy street at 10e Parisian district. He discussed with the photographer of the World and, at the request of the latter, ordered a grenadine, so that a little red would appear in the picture. He’s getting his makeup done. Almost nothing, just a little foundation, so that the face does not shine in front of the flash. The make-up artist applies, pats the skin.
Finally, he can strike a pose and become Lomepal, his stage name, phonetically “the pale man”. And that, intriguingly ironic, thanks to a few grains of darkening blush. It is with his face covered in this tiny artifice that he will then go out for some fresh air. On the sidewalk opposite, three young people scrutinize him. We guess their words, their joy to meet him, then to tell their friends that they saw him there, in the middle of the day.
Because he is known, very well known even, this young man with a shy and gentle smile. Released in 2017, his first album, Flipsold 400,000 copies, and the next, Jeannine, was propelled diamond disc (500,000 sales). He toured all over France.
Announced at the end of August by surprise and released on September 16, his third album, wrong order, promises to be one of the biggest successes of this season, with already 50,000 sales (the equivalent of a gold record) in one week. Melancholy emerges from the texts. The old call it “spleen”, the young “lose”. Malaise being a collective feeling, the pieces of the one who sings be “pretty sure to be a solid person” speak to many. To the point that the categories are erased.
Because he talks about himself, quotes A$AP Rocky or collaborates with Nekfeu, Lomepal is considered a rapper. Because he lays his words down gently on the melodies, he doesn’t have much of the alpha male – on the cover of Flip, he wore eyeshadow and earrings – he is seen as a singer. Whatever ? The “urban music” category never really made sense.
Everything to exist
In its beginnings, Lomepal told a lot. In interviews, on his Instagram account, in his texts, he forgot nothing, ferreted in the most intimate corners. “There was something like, ‘Notice me, I’m here!’ he explains. I wanted to exist and I did everything for it. » He emptied himself, exhausted, as Georges Perec had “exhausted” the Place Saint-Sulpice, by settling down in a café for three days and taking note of everything he saw. The writer had made a story out of it, Attempt to exhaust a Parisian place (1975), and had moved on. Lomepal had exhausted Antoine Valentinelli with almost thirty years of memories.
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