{"id":512596,"date":"2026-01-13T06:57:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T06:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/512596\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T06:57:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T06:57:13","slug":"meryl-la-dame-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/512596\/","title":{"rendered":"Meryl: La Dame Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the past year, whenever someone has asked what music I\u2019m most excited about right now, I\u2019ve asked whether they\u2019ve tuned into Martinican shatta. French West Indian dancehall rap is bold, loud, outrageously sexy, and impossible to pin down, channeling a unique constellation of rhythmic heritage (dancehall, trap, zouk, soca) into beats that demand you shake and hustle. The production on MOLIY\u2019s 2025 smash<\/a> \u201cShake It to the Max\u201d was inspired in part by shatta, and it\u2019s the Martincian remix<\/a> with stars Kalash and Maureen<\/a> that went platinum at my house. But there\u2019s no rising artist easier to get excited about in this niche but hot scene than Meryl, aka Cindy Elismar, a rapper and singer whose vocal dexterity and understated intensity stand out on just about every track.<\/p>\n

Her new album, La Dame, unites slower and more sentimental shatta ballads with the thumping dancefloor heaters that first drew me to her music. Meryl\u2019s approach is broad enough to capture shatta\u2019s party spirit and rich sensuality, deep enough to touch on subjects like family, heartache, and homesickness (or, in any case, to wish \u201cgoodbye to the side chicks and hoes\u201d). This is her third full-length release following her debut tape and 2024\u2019s Caviar 1; she\u2019s getting the je ne sais quoi dialed in with a go-to circle of producers, a way longer guest list, and harder-hitting sounds, like the posse cut \u201cChaos,\u201d that reflect the influence and reach of contemporary drill.<\/p>\n

Like much dancehall, shatta is primarily a singles genre and some of my all-time favorite Meryl songs feel too high-octane for an album, or at least the albums she\u2019s released so far: They\u2019re singles like the goes-crazy \u201cPatate<\/a>\u201d with St. Lucia\u2019s BlackBoy, the super horny bouyon track \u201cLa Boue<\/a>\u201d with Guadeloupe\u2019s Lestef KJF Boyz, or (two reliable names in this scene) DJ Tutuss and Mikado\u2019s East Indian-accented beat for \u201cBADMIND<\/a>.\u201d Most of La Dame is not quite that intense, but when the pace escalates on \u201cInstructions\u201d with French Congolese singer Theodora, the moody femme fatale duet \u201cCoco Chanel\u201d with French singer Eva, and \u201cShatta Confessions\u201d with Martinican singer N\u2019Ken, you really hear what Meryl\u2019s mixture of take-no-prisoners verbal attack and \u201cWho, me?\u201d chill can do. She\u2019s just as unfazed on the supercharged Guadeloupe bouyon collaborations that light up the second half: \u201cVite Fait\u201d with Pinpin OSP and \u201cCastries\u201d with Miimii KDS<\/a>, whose discography\u2014currently three songs\u2014is all hits<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These are La Dame\u2019s most essential tracks, but the full album demonstrates the flexibility of shatta\u2019s musical and emotional range, and if you understand a little Creole or French, you will quickly come to appreciate Meryl\u2019s tough-gal charm. She is one cool customer until she spies a baddie in a mini bikini. She tells us what her homies say when the blunt is really hitting\u2014\u201ccouteau,\u201d knife\u2014and how they\u2019ve dreamed of hustling for \u201cla vie Jeff Bezos.\u201d Her lyrical flourishes always feel a little wilder than real life, like when she offers to slash a cheater\u2019s tires and celebrate with a bonfire, or when she hypes up her lover by telling her they\u2019ll wear sunglasses in the club like \u201cChl\u00f6e<\/a> et Burna<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second reason Meryl\u2019s music feels so exciting right now is the work she\u2019s putting in to highlight the artists<\/a> she\u2019s excited about, with credits on this album for Martinican producer DJ Vitrine and a whole cast of pan-Antillean and Francophone rappers: Lawskie (Martinique), Latop (Guadeloupe), Poplane and Lion P (French Guiana), Zequin and R2 (France), and LRB490 (R\u00e9union). There is exciting music happening all across this sphere if you look for it, and La Dame is one great place to start. Meryl\u2019s playing an arena show in Paris this October that\u2019s already sold out\u2014I\u2019m so grateful to live in the time of the French Creole sapphic dancehall grind anthem, and she\u2019s taking it worldwide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the past year, whenever someone has asked what music I\u2019m most excited about right now, I\u2019ve asked…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":512597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1939,1582,276,2961,224,5337,1940],"class_list":{"0":"post-512596","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-albums","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-losangeles","14":"tag-web"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115886492411009155","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}