Rau_Ze’s Rise: Inside the Duo Redefining Quebec’s R&B and Trip-Hop Scene

February 10, 2026

By Karen Bliss

Francophone duo Rau_Ze (pronounced Rose), whose full-length debut album, Virer nos vies,  is an eclectic, seductive mix of R&B, trip-hop, soul and jazz, was awarded the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame’s 2025 Breakthrough Songwriter Award — presented by the SOCAN Foundation with support from Amazon Music — this past October at the LÉGENDES Induction event in Montreal.

Rose Perron (lead singer) and Félix Paul (programmer, producer, and other instruments), who augment their recordings and live show with additional players, recently put out a deluxe version of the prize-winning album called Re;;;Virer nos vies, featuring previously unreleased songs “La dérive” and “Travaille toute la nuit.” It will allow them some time to catch their breath, before starting on their follow-up album.

The two met in the jazz program at Cégep de St-Laurent in 2018 and entered TV’s Star Académie’s 2021 selection camp. A year later, they entered another talent contest, Francouvertes, which they won. They went on to receive numerous grants, nominations and awards, signing with Quebec boutique label, 117 Records, in 2023.

The singles “L’Habitude” and “Pas la peine” came out that fall, followed by the title track “Virer nos vies” in February 2024.  The album Virer nos vies dropped in March.

Rau_Ze has had quite a ride since. They were recognized in May with Révélation Radio-Canada 2024–25 in the Musique électronique/Pop category, then won the Prix Espoir FEQ that summer, which came with $20,000 and a live performance opportunity at Switzerland’s Paléo Festival.  That October, they also snagged ADISQ’s 2024 Félix for R&B/soul album.

In 2025, they signed with Paris-based Wagram Music’s WLab to launch over in Europe and played dates overseas, including France’s Festival Avec le Temps and Switzerland’s Luzern Festival. Back home, they won a couple more significant awards, the 2025 Prix Félix-Leclerc Song Prize (and $10,000) and a $1500 grant from Groupe Éditorial Musinfo, which came with an artist residency at the Cité internationale de la langue française in France.

Rau_Ze have played well over 100 gigs in Quebec alone, among them festivals such as Osheaga, Festival d’été, Festivoix, La Noce, and Les Francos de Montréal, but have not played the rest of Canada. “Gatineau is the closest we’ve been to,” says Perron.

Adds Paul: “I hope that people want to book us and this kind of exposure is the right way to get opportunities.”

The two spoke to Karen Bliss via Zoom about getting their start entering contests, the Pantheon honour, their other wins, how they work together, and if they would ever sing in English.

I usually talk to songwriters for the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame that are inducted and have decades of songwriting experience behind them. It’s usually their favourite award because it represents the very essence of how they make a living. What does it mean to you to be recognized in this way?

Rose: It’s a big one. It’s truly a goal of [ours] to be recognized by doing that. It’s how we spend our life. It’s how we spend our days. It’s beautiful. We’re grateful as frick.

Félix:  It’s the ultimate proof that we might be on the right path because as emerging artists, as up-and-coming artists, we don’t always trust [ourselves]. Having this kind of recognition is such a huge push for us. We feel great about it.

I don’t need to point out how many hundreds of other songwriters there are in Quebec, but you were chosen.

Félix:  It’s an honour.

Rose: Yes, it’s an honour because [we’re] writing in French, in Quebecois; it’s not always… easy because we could write in English and be open to all the world, and we choose to do that to reflect our place.

When you first started working together, when did each of you know you had something special?  I don’t understand French, but it’s a beautiful record.

Rose: We met in the jazz college and there’s a lot of people, but I was really drawn to Félix’s rigorous way to do music and be passionate in a technical way. I was more hippie [laughs]. So, when I saw how we could make music together, I found real quick that it was gonna be nice.

Félix: Do you mean when did we find that each other were special for each other or that we add something special to offer to the music? [Yes]

Rose: We give each other confidence. We choose to be a duo because we’re bouncing off ideas.

Félix: Pretty early on, we trusted ourselves because we knew that each other bring to the table something that the other cannot bring as much. We knew we had a good partnership, but we didn’t really know we had something people would love, until it was out and people could hear it because, well, at first, we’ve got a bunch of draft[s] and a bunch of halfway done songs and we pitch them to the labels. We have a good conversation, but nobody thought to work with us, but when the public [heard it] we’ve got so much love messages.

Rose: It’s our debut album so all of it is made with the mistake and love so maybe that’s it,  I don’t know [laughs].

Félix: We’re still not sure if we’ve got something really special, but along the way things like being recognized by the Pantheon is a great help.

You got your start by entering contests? Star Académie in 2021 and Francouvertes in 2022. Some artists are dead set against those competitions, but I know they’ve helped launch a lot of careers in Quebec and, well, anywhere. Why did you go that route?

Rose: We had nothing to lose and not much knowledge about this. We really went with our jazz spirit of doing music every week and having a band and just showed that thing. We didn’t know that bookers exist [laughs]. We didn’t know what the label was. We were really going all for it. So in retrospection, we won a lot of shows, a lot of things, so it helped us.

Félix: Not only were we completely new to the music industry, but Francouvertes, the contest, was our first show of this project.

Rose: And the semi-final was the second one and the final was the third one [laughs].

Félix: The stakes were very low. Participating in the contest was only a way to…

Rose: [laughs] do something with our lives.

Félix: Yeah to drive the project and because we didn’t know if we wanted to do this with our life. We were out of the music school.

Rose: I was working in the kindergarten, and Félix was working in the fries shop [restaurant],

Félix: We just said what do we have to lose? There’s no project and the project was born out of this contest. Of course, it can be so cruel because there’s only one winner every year and I don’t know if I’d recommend it for up-and-coming artists. Don’t put too much hope in these [things] because it’s so subjective and that’s not the only way to make it, but we’re so grateful.

I read that some of your lyrics focus on mental health [“Pas la peine”], addiction [“Virer nos vies”] and feminism [“Crève”]. Félix, do you talk with Rose about the topics so you’re on the same page since they sound very personal?

Rose: We both write [Rose co-wrote four of the 13 songs]. Félix helped me a lot because he has more school knowledge about it. So the first album he really put himself out there. He’s really my BFF and writes sometimes through my eyes and I love being an interpreter. I’m from that. I always sang [others’] song[s] all my life. That’s my school.

Félix: Sometimes, it comes from Rose’s notebooks; sometimes it comes from mine, but we always write about things that happen to us together or in support of each other. So things have been true that Rose has been through. We don’t want to be preachy in her lyrics when we talk about, like drug abuse and the mental health and feminism. It’s always true parts of our life, stories from our 20s in Montreal.  I think it can be relatable for the people in our community that listen to us and it’s a good way to talk about politic through the everyday life, and try to put into words how we feel about everyday life struggle, but using the language we use every day, finding something poetic about it.

I find sometimes that artists from Quebec are more creative because you are somewhat distant from the English-language pop industry, so you don’t have parameters.

Félix: There’s definitely something in the water in Montreal, I think it’s the vibe.

Rose: It’s a beautiful way you put it because it’s true that we really try to push the Quebec culture in Quebec, but surely most of the people listen to English American music, so it’s really an everyday fight for Quebec to be seen. It’s nice to see that you think we’re curious.

Félix: I guess for the rest of Canada and for English speaking artists and popular music in general, huge labels [have a] huge grip on the industry. Maybe we celebrate marginal artists a bit more because we’ve got a culture of indie labels and since we sing in French, we have less of the huge USA music machine influence.

Would you ever sing in English or do a version of one of these songs in English?

Rose: Maybe, because it’s really my accent which I found weird, but sometimes I write in English. We first started in English.

Félix: There’s many great examples of music from France or Brazil, people singing in English with an accent. People like it. I think Rose is too hard on herself. When she sings, the accent disappear completely simply because she’s been learning how to sing in English before she learned how to speak it, at a very young age. I think she’s a super good English singer. We actually started by doing a composition in English at the beginning, when we were trying to find our identity. The reason is simple. We listen to so much music in English from Canadian artists and we could not only listen to music from Quebec. We love it, but we eat music every day, so we want to listen to everything. I’d love to do music in English

Rose: Me too.

A deluxe version of Virer nos vies is out now.  Is it a stopgap because you’ve done so well with this album and and now you’ve got the European deal, it gives you time so you don’t have to do the follow-up album so soon?

Rose: 100 percent.

Félix: Yeah, you’ve put your finger on it. That’s exactly it.

Rose: We’ve been on tour for four summers. We need a little creativity break because the first one took 20 years. So, we need it but we’re really happy to like seal the album with two tracks that that speak through us. It’s us, so we’re giving that and after we’re coming back with something else later, but not now.

Félix: It’s a way to close the first chapter of our career and give people a few more tunes. There’s two new songs, one that’s a bit more popish [“La dérive”], and the other one [“Travaille toute la nuit”]  that’s more reflective of the energy we bring on stage for the live shows. So, it’s also to give us more time to charge our batteries.  There’s a lot of pressure when you win this many prizes and this is still a new life for us. We’re trying to find the balance, so we’re gonna take a bit of a step back at the end of the tour. We also do things in Europe next summer. We want to come back as strong as ever and take our time.