Quand c’est is a single from French singer-songwriter Stromae from the album Racine carrée on September 14, 2015.

Music video[edit]

In the first few seconds of the video of “quand c’est?”, there is a close up to Stromaes face. It is positioned in a very similar way to his head on the cover of the album. The difference is that his head is facing two opposite directions in the song and on the album cover. This suggest from the get – go of the music video that Stromae is about to say something opposing the consensus.

Cancer, which is what the song is mainly about, is represented in the music video as spider – like legs. Furthermore, Stromae even uses his hands like the spider legs, thus claiming that cancer is a living thing, which isn’t too different from him. Later on, it even has an eye, just like a living creature. Another interesting thing is that the “audience” to Stromae’s performance is the legs themselves, giving them even more live – like queleties.

Stromae addresses cancer directly: “you started with my mother”. By giving the cancer live – like qualities and addressing it directly, he humanizes it.

By talking to it and humanizing it, Stromae looks cancer “directly at its eyes”, while singing “when?” multiple times. This is after acknowledging humans can’t fight it, as it already attacked both Stromae’s parents. When it physically attacks him, he fights it, but seems not to try to run away. All of this suggests that Stromae actually looks forward to cancer attacking him, as he knows he won’t be able to run away from it.

Live performances[edit]

Stromae performed the song at his Racine Carrèe tour in Montreal on September 2015

On February 2022, The singer performed the song in Amsterdam, 2 months later, Stromae performed it in Coachella in California.