“Québec History X”: Re-Visioning the Past Through Rap¹

1. An early version of this analysis was presented as “Changing History: Re-presenting the Past in Québec Rap” at the American Council for Quebec Studies Conference held in Burlington, VT, November 4–7, 2010. My thanks to those present who offered advice and suggestions used in the revisions of this article.

Abstract

This article examines how contemporary rap texts invoke historical events to contribute to a vision of the imagined community of Québec as a diverse and accommodating, “transcultural” society. It examines how the recent anthem rap songs of the controversial, franco-nationalist rappers Loco Locass actually reflect the attitude of accommodation found in the recent Bouchard-Taylor Report. Similar sentiments of reconciliation appear in their collaboration with franco-Algonuin rapper Samian, “La Paix des Braves” (Face à la Musique, 2008) which commemorates the Great Peace of Montréal and the more recent agreement between Québec and the Cree in 2002. In contrast, Webster, a black rapper from Québec City, suggests in “Quebec History X” (Sagesse immobile, 2008) that such visions elide historical incidences of racial oppression and conflict, and that Québécois society still has progress to make in terms of revealing its past in order to enlighten the present.

Keywords:

• Quebec
• rap
• Loco Locass
• Samian (Samuel Tremblay)
• Webster (Ali Ndiaye)

Notes

1. An early version of this analysis was presented as “Changing History: Re-presenting the Past in Québec Rap” at the American Council for Quebec Studies Conference held in Burlington, VT, November 4–7, 2010. My thanks to those present who offered advice and suggestions used in the revisions of this article.

2. The album title may be translated roughly as “Faced with myself” or “Facing/Confronting myself.” This and subsequent translations provided parenthetically in the text are the author's.

3. This title plays on both the cognate “manifesto” and the French term for a demonstration, une manifestation, coupled with another cognate, “festive.”

4. In his masterful study of heavy metal, musicologist Robert Walser observes the flawed nature of cultural studies of popular music that do not address the issue of musical styles and forms themselves, treating music as text (Walser, 1993, xi). I must admit that the present analysis also elides questions of music theory in relation to these texts, but their interest is such that even such a partial examination as that appearing here is merited.

5. In February 2007, the provincial government charged a commission headed by two of the province's most esteemed intellectuals, Gérard Bouchard and Charles Taylor, with the mandate to investigate current practices of cultural accommodation in Québec and ultimately to “formulate recommendations to the government to ensure that accommodation practices conform to Québec's values as a pluralistic, democratic, egalitarian society” (Bouchard and Taylor, 2008, 17). In response to a perception of twofold anxiety—fears on the part of the “ethnocultural majority of being swamped by fragile minorities that are worried about their future” (Bouchard and Taylor, 2008, 18) and of discrimination from the Franco-Québécois majority on the part of the various cultural communities, the commission investigated current practices of accommodation, incidences of conflict, and attitudes of members of the various constituencies.

6. One result of the Quiet Revolution's reforms to the Québec educational system was the creation of the cégep, Collège d'enseignement général et professionnel, roughly equivalent to the community college in the US.,

7. Another word play occurs in their name, which obviously draws on the Spanish term for “crazy,” loco, coupled with the French cognate for “loquacious.” The alternate spelling in the final version of the group's name, locass, then invokes the English, “ass.”

8. For a more thorough discussion of this work see Ransom 2011, 26–30.

9. The “Cree Vision of Plan Nord” document expresses renewed concerns over more recent efforts by the Quebec government to develop resources in the northern regions of the province; however, in a recent address at the 2012 meeting of the American Council for Quebec Studies Matthew Coon Come, Grand Chief of the Grand Council of the Crees expressed his satisfaction with a renegotiated version of the Plan which includes greater Native input on development decisions. (http://www.gcc.ca/pdf/Cree-Vision-of-Plan-Nord.pdf).

10. Elgersman, however, reports the date of 1628 (2009, 9); she also cites a vague reference to a “Negro or Moor” boy in the Jesuits' possession in the early seventeenth century; (see pp. 63–65 of Vol. 5 of Thwaites's translated edition of The Jesuit Relations; p. 17, n. 13).