The criminal in “Criminel” sits in office. FAB I&I aims the second track on his new album, Connexions, at the governments steering the world he watches on the news. He sings it in French over a reggae groove with hip-hop in its bones, and he couldn’t stay indifferent to what he was seeing. Single and video both dropped 13 May.

Connexions came out on 20 March, twelve self-produced tracks cut piecemeal along the road: by his own account, no two songs on it were recorded in the same place or with the same drummer. It is also the first record on which the New Caledonian songwriter, born Fabian Clavel, sings in French after years of writing in English, a shift he describes as a new way of carrying his messages. Martinican veteran Yaniss Odua guests on “Refind the Roots“, one of two singles that preceded the album alongside “La Vie“.

Clavel learned the trade in the bars of Nouméa, where his band I&I started out in 2010 playing Bob Marley covers before Common Fate in 2014 and Mama Earth in 2016, voted reggae album of the year in New Caledonia. In 2019 he flew to Miami to record Neva Give Up with Aston Barrett Jr, drummer of The Wailers and son of the band’s bassist Familyman. This summer he is half a planet from home, working through a French festival run that stretches into late September.

Stream “Criminel” and the rest of Connexions HERE