Looking through two lenses: reflections on transnational and translocal dimensions in Marseille-based popular music relating to the Comoros

ABSTRACT

This article starts from the observation that whenever new concepts become popular, they are applied to more and more contexts until they have become so inclusive that they risk losing their analytical power. This tendency also shapes the relationship between the concepts of transnationality and translocality, which is discussed here with a focus on popular music. More precisely, this article draws on research on two musical actors who are both based in the French city of Marseilles and who both relate to the Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros: the internationally acclaimed rapper Soprano and the group Afropa, who play Afrofolk on the margins of the music scene in Marseilles. Besides the different levels of success they experience and the distinct musical genres they embody, these musicians represent different generations of a Franco-Comorian ‘diaspora’. Their musical oeuvre, motivations and ambitions, as well as the perception of their music by different audiences, will be discussed with respect to the notions of transnationalism and translocality that become apparent.

KEYWORDS:

• Transnationalism
• translocality
• popular music
• Marseilles
• Comoros

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank first and foremost Abdoulwahab Chaharani and Mohamed Cheikh Ali for their willingness to let both me and my colleague Andrés Carvajal gain insight into their lives and music, which also resulted in the research film “Creating Comoria” (2014).

Furthermore, I am very grateful to the editors of this special issue, the anonymous reviewers, as well as to my colleagues Katharina Fritsch and Hanna Stepanik for their invaluable comments and corrections to the first draft of this paper. Many thanks also go to Ruth Simpson for having proofread the paper. This paper was written with the help of funding provided by the Austrian Science Fund, project P-26255-G22, which is also gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Each member of the group chose a new pseudonym, such as Soprano, Segnor Alonzo (Kassim Djae), Don Vincenzo (Illiassa Issilame) and DJ Sya Styles (Rachid Ait Baar), (Soprano 2014: 33). Rachid Ait Baar (DJ Sya Styles) died on 26 October 2015.

2. For an introduction to the beginning of rap music in the USA, see for example Rose (1994), for its development outside the USA, Mitchell (2001).

3. The profiles of most posters that were openly accessible indicated that most of them were based outside of the Comoros, also the exclusive use of French rather than Comorian seems to back this assumption up, although French is obviously also used by Facebook users who are based in the Comoros. The names of posters have been anonymised.

4. Full lyrics at http://www.paroles.net/soprano/paroles-preface, last accessed 27 December 2016.

5. Full lyrics at http://www.paroles.net/soprano/paroles-cosmo, last accessed 27 October 2017.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Austrian Science Fund [P-26255-G22].