A rough guide to French Hiphop (part 1)

Jul 03, 2006

A rough guide to French Hiphop (part 1) · by Sach O

Fun fact: French rappers actually hate France.

Rap in any language but English is a really hard sell in America and frankly it’s easy to understand why: unless the emcee in question is Geechi Suede or E-40, it usually helps to understand exactly what’s going on in the rhyme. Add to that a certain…resistance to foreign influence by the hood and it’s unsurprising that collabs between small Midwestern cities are far more commonplace than NYC-London-Paris connections. However, it’s not fair to judge all international Hiphop as one giant whole: while Britain has produced DJ’s with an incredible knowledge of breaks and a few dope emcees, few would say that London’s Hiphop industry has reached a fully self-sufficient stage. France meanwhile has for the past 20 years grown several entirely self-contained homegrown scenes that in many ways mirror the developments of US Hiphop. My personal theory is that despite spats over freedom fries, the two countries are remarkably similar and hate each other for it: both were beacons of democracy in the past, both held vast empires that benefited from African exploitation, both cling to their ideologies (Capitalism and Socialism respectively) to a fault and most importantly both have severe racial conflicts. Anyone who’s ever listened to French rap was left unsurprised last year when Parisian ghettos exploded into riots as cats have been predicting this sort of thing for years. This social pressure boiler remains the main engine driving French rap though the American idea of blowing up has certainly entered most rappers’ subconscious in recent years, for better or worse.

The following is not meant to be an in-depth analysis of France’s “scene” since that would be a book in itself. Rather, these are quick descriptions and profiles of some of the more interesting French artists of the 80’s and 90’s aimed at US audiences who might not know about them. Hopefully it can function as a starting point for anyone who might have an interest in seeing how an entirely different culture used an American invention as the starting point for several generations’ worth of music and self expression. Expect regular updates to this series and once I’ve collected enough material, I’ll probably consolidate it into a feature for easier reference purposes.

Part 1: The essentials

1. MC Solaar
Sounds like: Rakim, Guru, Q-Tip
International collabo? Le Bien le Mal with Guru
Somewhat of an obligatory mention at this point, MC Solaar laid down the foundation of French Hiphop: thoughtful words and measured flows over NYC influenced jazz beats. The man clearly studied Rakim’s rhymes, perhaps a little too closely for comfort but luckily the pseudo-scientific rhyme styles worked in the context of the laid back, jazzy beats. His later albums unfortunately deviated into Puffy inspired disco-rap and acid-jazz/trip-hop nonsense, but when he’s doing his thing and not worrying about the influence of the marketplace he’s an interesting if somewhat one derivative emcee. Honestly, his impact on later emcees stands as more important than his work in itself at this point, but his two first albums are essential listening regardless.

2. Supreme NTM (group)
Sounds like: NWA, Ice Cube, MOP, Public Enemy, Blackmoon, Nas Escobar, Onyx
Members: Joey Starr (MC/beatmaker), Kool Shen (MC/Beatmaker)
International collabo? Affirmative Action remix with The Firm
These guys scared the living hell out of pretty much every French conservative and they eventually got sent to jail for a couple of months for “inciting violence through music”. While Solaar was busy comparing his lyrics to hurricanes, Joey Starr and Kool Shen were more concerned about the increasing violence in the Parisian ghetto, mixing vivid descriptions of the hood with incendiary protest songs that still ring true to this day. Vocally, Joey is the crew’s main lyricist while Kool Shen plays the charismatic growling sidekick and lyrically the content is strictly hardcore, dealing with Parisian street life without ever going into exaggerated glorification. Most of the times the beats are on point as well: a mix of bomb-squad noisiness and Beatminers gloom. The group’s live album and their double disc collection of (modern) remixes are good starting points but any of their group albums are worth a look. Avoid the mediocre post-breakup material though.
Listen to this: Seine St-Denis Style (a dedication to their hood), Touche pas à ma musique Y2k update remix (a protest song against government sponsored censorship of rap music in remixed form)

3. IAM (group)
Sounds like: Nas, Wu-Tang, Rakim, nothing you’ve ever heard before.
Members: Akhenaton (main MC/Producer), Shurik’n (MC/Producer), Freeman (b-boy/MC), Imhotep (producer), Kheops (DJ/producer), Kephren (Manager)
International collabos? La Saga with Royal Fam, Noble Art with Red and Meth, Seul Face à Lui with Rza, Bienvenue with Beyonce. More.
I could write a whole article on this group alone so for the purpose of this profile I won’t even touch on the crew’s Wu-esque amount of solos and affiliate albums. Speaking of Wu-Tang, it’d be very convenient to label these guys biters since they use old movie samples and ancient imagery (Egyptian, but also Asian) in their music but truth be told these guys dropped several years before Rza and company even signed to Loud and have been rhyming for several more. The group’s genesis begins in the early 80’s when Sicilian/French MC Akhenaton left his adopted home of Marseilles (a rough city lemme tell you) and visited his grandfather who lived in Brooklyn. While hampered by his lack of English, the kid immediately fell in love with Hiphop music and began rhyming upon his return to France. In the late 80’s he linked up with several likeminded individuals and IAM was born. By 1989 their self-distributed cassette demo started making rounds in the hood and they were eventually signed to a major label, releasing De La Planète Mars in 91, a seminal debut which introduced the world at large to their aggressive battle rhymes, descriptive narratives and bugged out imagery. Their 1993 re-up Ombre et Lumière stands as the first rap double album in history on any continent (take that 2pac!) and their 1997 album École du Micro D’Argent sold something like a gajillion copies worldwide. From then on, they’ve released assorted solo albums, compilations, mixtapes, one off’s and affiliate projects to keep busy, though frankly their post millenial work is a mixed bag. Still, if you ever listen to one French rap group, make it these guys.
Listen to Nés sous la meme étoile (life as a shorty shouldn’t be so rough), Bouge ta tête (dedication to the oldschool), Un cris dans la nuit (anti-gun song), I AM DANGEROUS (anti-censorship song)

Comments for "A rough guide to French Hiphop (part 1)"

this is lookin’ mad similar to something my boy threw up on our blog just the other day. I dunno, I’m just saying.

http://cigarbox-guitars.blogspot.com/2006/06/french.html

i’m sure it’s all an innocent coincedence boys…

— green hornet Jul 3, 06:25 PM
Dayum. That IS one hell of an coincidence to say the least. Same three acts mentioned too (although to be fair, it’s the big three). My post was inspired by a thread at Philaflava.com about personal favorite emcees though so I can only chalk it up to a cosmic hickup.

I’ve never read that blog but most of the info on there is on point. MC Solaar really isn’t the most popular emcee in France (by a longshot) and that Noble Art song with Redman isn’t really representative of IAM at their peak, but its a good look in general and recommend cats check it out and grab the audio there since the songs are all good.

Weird though. Très weird.

— Sach Jul 3, 08:55 PM
My girlfriend is from (and currently lives in) Paris, and I was surprised to hear from her that a lot of people over there haven’t even heard of MC Solaar. I can still remember his “Oui ou non” video with Guru from back in the day.

Anyway, from the time I’ve spent over there, I would argue that “the severe racial conflicts” are more of an issue in France than over here in the U.S. Admittedly, I have never spent much time in the American social extremes (say, Beverly Hills vs. Marcy Projects) but the prejudices I experienced over in France were a lot worse than what I am exposed to on a daily basis in America.

Akon put out a track at the end of last year with Monsieur R in response to what the French P.M. had to say about the rioting. Hit me up if you’re interested in it.

— jones Jul 3, 11:39 PM
From what I know about French hip-hop this is sort of like if two people happened to make blog posts about “the 3 most influential MCs ever” and each mentioned Rakim, KRS, and Nas (or something along the lines).

Both of these were pretty informative posts though, since I haven’t heard much IAM or NTM and no Solaar other than the Guru track.

— David Jul 4, 03:22 AM
very good post.

Another rap group, that would be more “recent” that those cited here and that had a critical acclaim with their albums is “la rumeur”. Check their album “l’ombre sur la mesure”, it’s really good.

And, you know, that thing about riots in the suburbs was very exagerated in the media; every french that see what were told in foreign medias was schoked by the exageration of the event.

— djeff Jul 4, 09:31 AM
I’m just testing the commenting after a software upgrade…

— Rafi Jul 4, 12:22 PM
As for UK rappers, Jeh5t is not to be ignored. His post apocalyptically vivid lyric imagery written with one of the sharpest pens in hip hop over dope production is the bonsai. His CD “Return of the Drifter” is a fine example of his work. Props to Mister Lawson for putting me onto him.

— sankofa Jul 4, 06:19 PM
I haven’t heard Jeh5t, but there are several dope emcees from the UK and I didn’t mean to slight them. Klashnekoff being particularly dope in my book. My criticism was only in regards to the lack of infrastructure for releasing and promoting music. That’s one of France’s greatest achievements: their industry is self-sustaining and doesn’t need anyone else.

Djeff, I’ll be profilling “La Rumeur” in a future edition, those cats are definitely dope. The only cats I’m expressively avoiding are hyper-underground french emcees of both the nerdy (TTC) and thug (Those guys who did an album with PCP) variety. Mostly because that would involve my listening to them.

— Sach Jul 4, 06:52 PM
I’m dissapointed you didn’t mention Assassin, but pleased to see IAM and Supreme NTM both mentioned. All three were on French hip-hop mixtapes I got by mail back in the day. “Planete Mars” is still one of my favorite rap songs in ANY language.

— DJ Flash Jul 6, 06:46 AM
the song I cant get tired to listen to by I AM is “petit frere”. And if you’d understand the lyrics…it would be yours too.

— djeff Jul 7, 10:22 PM
once I thought I could improve my language skills my listening to French hiphop but the slang is pretty thick and I can’t understand any of that shit.

— Mathew Jul 9, 04:46 PM
Very good post, this is definiively the 3 artists/groups that has been the most influencial when the hip hop culture has boomed in France.

“My girlfriend is from (and currently lives in) Paris, and I was surprised to hear from her that a lot of people over there haven’t even heard of MC Solaar.” I’m from Paris and everybody has heard from mc solar. Even my parents know him :)

— mael Jul 27, 12:37 PM
A nice primer, I’ll add a minor correction: vocally, Kool Shen was the crew’s main lyricist while Joey played the charismatic growling sidekick ;)

For more on French hip-hop, check out my podcast Yo La La! at http://www.yolala.org

— French Hip-Hop Feb 18, 11:01 AM