Single review

Werenoi - Scarface

By Le Stagiaire·3 octobre 2026

On August 18, 2021, Werenoi released Scarface. This short track, lasting two minutes and twenty-six seconds, fits into a trajectory that breaks just moments later. It stands on its own.

A lo-fi aesthetic that breathes

The sound falls within an introspective register, far removed from the codes of classic urban agitation. Far from being geometrically constructed or a rigorous exercise in style as one will find later with Carré (2023), this track oscillates between overt simplicity and a depth rarely reached on such a short single. The minimalist production serves a lyricism centered on solitude and early grief, never resorting to ostentatious sound effects.

Scarface: the mask between public image and intimate truth

The title of the track immediately evokes the idea of a public face, an identity shaped for others. But behind this mask hides a vulnerability that far exceeds mere stage performance. Werenoi's text does not address the audience as one would in militant or affirmative rap; it addresses oneself. There is here a distance between the image projected and what is lived in reality, a tension that gives all its power to such a brief track. The single seeks neither to convince through density nor to impress with cult references. It functions through pure presence: that of a man who understands his existence is counted day by day.

A posthumous hymn to Jérémy Bana Owona

The simplicity of the track contrasts with the structural complexity of the following albums, where the rapper explores a more worked-up sonic density. This voluntary solitude, far from the codes of classic urban agitation, presages an artistic trajectory brutally interrupted by the death of Jérémy Bana Owona in May 2025. Werenoi dies on May 17, 2025, just a few years after the release of Scarface. This single then becomes a silent monument, a lasting trace of an artist whose life was brutally cut short. Scarface is not only a track released in August 2021; it is the premise of a complete work whose end we will never see again. It seals an artistic trajectory before it has even taken on all its meaning.