PNL - Shenmue

The song is truly dope. I've already listened to it 100 times (no joke).

The lyrics are powerful and a bit sad. They refer to PNL's past as drug dealers in Paris suburbs and tell their disenchantment with reality and their once dirty job.

The song takes many references from video games and anime as their fictional characters reflect well their attitude and situation. Video games can also be viewed as their way to escape from reality.

It's not the first time PNL do mention video games. In 2017, PNL featured in a music video (18 million views) a Dreamcast controller and an Arsenal shirt at the time Sega sponsored the club.

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To put this into further context, the duo has been formed after one of the two brothers was released from prison. Their father himself had a long past as drug dealer and served 8 years in jail for bank robbery. Six years ago, the father was closed to be killed in a shooting implying a complex story between local gangs and the businessman Serge Dassault who was the mayor of the local Parisian suburb and 30th wealthiest people in the world according Forbes. Dassault and the father did know each other in the past.

In the previous album, some songs referred to a "mayor" as symbol of blood and power. In "Shenmue", a lyric line refers to vengeance. Vengeance on who?what? I've no idea.

It's hard to find accurate sense in PNL songs because they love to play with local dialect, slang and idioms taken straight from Paris suburb culture and African emigrants while the writing structure is traditionally a bit cryptic, not to mention the pop culture references. PNL is also famous for never giving interviews so it makes the read even trickier.

So I think PNL chose specifically Shenmue because it has the multiple meaning of virtual escape, hard journey, vengeance and... Shenmue 3 of course!

About the track reception in France, "Shenmue" is often mentioned as one of the best songs of the album.

PNL was by far the most popular music artist in France three years ago. Today, only Damso seems to be more famous. The hype awaiting the new album was HUGE in France and French-speaking world so don't be surprised if many messages on social networks are actually remarks about PNL's song.
 
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I had never heard of this duo before but they seem to be pretty big. Most of their videos get a couple dozen million clicks on YT, some even over a 100 million. While they're not really huge by YT's standards, their numbers are still very impressive. And out of those millions of people who listen to the song, a bunch of them may even end up googling what Shenmue is and decide to try out the games, with the first two now being available on modern hardware and the third one coming up in August. So, if the song brings in a bunch of new fans, it can only do good.

Although I'm not too big on the song itself. Your regular autotune music to me. Why does every pop artist have to overuse autotune, especially in hip hop?

I'm not blaming those two guyys for using their formula while it works, though. They seem to be making good cash with it. Also, if I recall correctly, the French were the ones who started this whole autotune thing a couple of years ago and then it spread all over the world.
 
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