An article about French rap music and an accompanying photo caption Nov. 24 incorrectly described the Indian Ocean island Reunion as a French territory. Reunion is a political unit known as an overseas department and is considered part of France proper.
In France, Anthems of Alienation
Rappers Were Decrying Officialdom, Slum Life Long Before Riots
Boss 1, from the French territory of Reunion Island, says Marseille's rap artists "try to educate as well as describe."
(By Daniel Williams -- The Washington Post)
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Thursday, November 24, 2005
MARSEILLE, France -- The quiet, shifty-eyed hashish and cocaine business outside Oliviers Snack, a fast-food joint in the graffiti-smeared Oliviers neighborhood, turned loud last week with the arrival of Aziz Chamsoudini, aka Skar, a rap artist and neighborhood hero.
A couple of young shaven-head men turned up their car's CD player so that everyone on the block could hear "Bring Pressure." It's a track from "By All Means Necessary," an album by Skar's group, Government From the Zone.
"Zone" is French slang for slum and "Bring Pressure" describes gray, listless Oliviers. It also heaps all sorts of nastiness on former and current French government officials, including Nicolas Sarkozy, the minister in charge of national security who recently labeled French rioters "scum."
On the disc, Skar pledged to do something vile to Sarkozy's mother and then rapped on:
Propagators of hatred
You want to exclude us.
I do not have anything to lose.
We are going to put pressure.
We're up to make the problems explode.
"By All Means Necessary" was released long before the riots and arson that shook France from late October until last weekend. Like many French rap albums, it was prophetic. Rap has been the burning anthem of France's alienated North African and non-white youths for more than 15 years.
Lyrics typically describe not only the dreary landscape, low prospects and high criminal life of neighborhoods like Oliviers, but also convey ferocious disdain for the well-tailored officialdom of Paris.
All around France, rioters recently told reporters about unemployment, police abuse, bad schools and racist taunts. But French rap was there first. "No one wants to listen to us? Too bad. We only spoke the truth," said Skar.
