Geneviève Côté, AMÉ, Étienne Chagnon, David Murphy

Left to right: Geneviève Côté, Chief of Québec Affairs at SOCAN, AMÉ, Étienne Chagnon, and David Murphy of David Murphy et Cie.

As a proud partner of the Rendez-vous Pros des Francos for a seventh consecutive year, SOCAN renewed its commitment to foster the export of homegrown talent – by once again presenting a showcase, this time featuring SOCAN members AMÉ and MB, who captivated the international representatives and general public who flocked to see them.

The free, public performances highlighted the Francos, an event organized by Francofolies de Montréal, that welcomes more than 150 professionals of the music and stage industries, promoting exchanges throughout La Francophonie.

Amélie Larocque performs at the heart of a type of pop music that entices people to dance. Sa couleur is her sophomore album, but as a songwriter, AMÉ has sprinkled her many musical hues on the work of many artists over the past few years. Now she’s ready to spread her mature talent all over La Francophonie.

Success is already knocking at her door, as evidenced by a SOCAN No. 1 Song Award, which SOCAN Chief of Québec Affairs, Geneviève Côté presented to her by surprise, onstage. The honour  recognizes her song “Déjà-Vu,” which reached the top of the ADISQ Correspondants chart on May 1, 2018. The irresistible ditty was co-written by Amélie Larocque and Étienne Chagnon, and is co-published by David Murphy et Cie and Éditions Arielle.

As for MB, a year after the release of “Couvre-feu,” his first mixtape, full of simmering violence, he’s now turned toward a more accessible brand of rap, aimed at a wider audience. This change in direction is as surprising to us, as it was carefully considered by the artist, who’s garnered millions of views on YouTube. MB and his 5sang14 collective provoked a frenzy onstage, offered testimony thatr he;s ready to conquer new territories.

Their performances were followed by a SOCAN’ meet-and-greet cocktail for the accredited professionals attending the confernece. During the event, the winners of the SOCAN Songwriting Prize – Loud, RealMind and Ruffsound, for their song “56k” – received their $10,000 cash prize, a PSR-S970 keyboard from Yamaha Canada, and a $500 gift certificate from Long & McQuade.