Rap as a Social and Political Revealer: Diam's and Changes in French Value Systems

Abstract

In 2006, a young female rapper named Diam's released an album that became the best‐selling CD in France: her CD and its reception is treated as a social phenomenon and examined against the backdrop of political arguments which developed in France in 2006–2007. Musical analysis shows that the sonic backgrounds of Diam's rap illustrated the importance of combinations and hard work in the symbolical production of a new order. Her texts manifested new combinations of social values which brought into the public debate changes in value systems that were just becoming developed enough to be taken up by political organisations and leaders. This is why the main themes in Diam's CD converged with topics engaged by the two main candidates in the French 2007 presidential election. This paper, combining the resources of musicology, literary analysis and political sociology analyses how Diam's put in aesthetic and emotional forms combinations of values that had been brewing underground for the past 30 years. It invites a reconsideration of the interpretation of rap as an expression of rebellion, or even as an element of counter‐culture, and apprehends it as a ‘social revealer’ that brings new values and representations into public debate and stimulates discussion around them. Diam's album was an ‘unidentified political object’ that shed original light on the way politics and politician are perceived by ordinary citizens, or specific groups among them, such as the youth.

Notes

¹ Mélanie Georgyades chose Diam's as her rap name not, she says, because ‘Diamonds are a girl's best friend’, but because diamonds are so hard that they can only be scratched or broken by other diamonds.

² Among others, JoeyStarr and Kool Shen of Supreme NTM.

³ Mélanie Georgyades was born in 1980, just when rap began to reach France.

⁴ Given the complexity of composition processes used in creating the sound environment of rap lyrics, I shall use the phrase ‘sonic background’ rather than ‘music’ or ‘beat’ to refer to the audible, non‐verbal elements that form an integral part of rap.

⁵ A former cabinet minister known for his hostility towards illegal migrants and the so‐called ‘riffraff’ (racaille) accused of wreaking havoc in underprivileged neighbourhoods.

⁶ A woman, not fully supported by the barons of her own party, who had had only limited experience in government, Ségolène Royal ran a ‘participative’ campaign and was frequently seen as unable to make clear propositions. To counter accusations of fuzziness, she had to align herself with Sarkozy's main campaign themes: patriotism, national identity and ethics (Tiberj 2008).

⁷ For reasons that cannot be elaborated upon within the format of this article, French cités should not be equated with American ‘hoods’: they differ in terms of social structure, organisation of space, and culture. For want of a better solution, I shall translate cités or quartiers as ‘projects’ or ‘neighbourhoods’, although I am aware that these words refer to a quite different social environment.

⁸ On the history of rap in France, see Bocquet and Pierre‐Adolphe 1997; Boucher 1998; Faure and Garcia 2005; George 2007; Marti 2005; Prévos 2001; Sberna 2001.

⁹ A DJ from South Bronx, Afrika Bambaataa was also the founder of the Zulu Nation, an organisation dedicated to the implementation of moral principles through the discipline of hip‐hop. He drew inspiration from Rastafarianism, afro‐centrism, ecology and his motto was: ‘Peace, love and having fun’ (George 1998: 18–21; Fernando 1999: 15–18).

¹⁰ One notable exception is MC Solaar, one of the most popular French MCs, whose ambition is to achieve recognition for the literary quality of texts that do not specifically deal with social issues and the condition of the youth (Mitchell 1996: 39–40).

¹¹ The ‘system’ is used by rappers as an extremely polysemic word: it includes individuals, especially politicians, who can be held responsible for the galère (the hell, the nightmare) many youth live through, and institutions which are resented as oppressive or segregationist; the ‘system’ can in its most extreme connotations hint at secret societies manipulating national and international organisations, or plotting to take over political power in one or several countries.

¹² Lyrics reproduced in Perrier 2000 and analyses provided in Boucher 1998, Sberna 2001, and Vicherat 2001 substantiate this summary of values in French rap.

¹³ See Brunon, Fernandez and Ramirez 2010. I wish to thank Laura Brunon, Mariano Fernandez and Zulma Ramirez, as well as Soizic Forgeon, Frédéric Hervé and Pélagie Mirand who participated in my seminar ‘Sociology of popular music’ at the University of Paris 8‐Saint Denis in 2007 and contributed two chapters in Martin, Brunon, Fernandez, Forgeon, Hervé, Mirand and Ramirez 2010.

¹⁴ ‘C'est pas ma France à moi cette France profonde / Celle qui nous fout la honte et aimerait que l'on plonge’ (My France is not this ‘grassroots’ France / To us she is a disgrace, and she would like us to drown).

¹⁵ Diam's arrived in France when she was four; she was raised by her French mother and had almost no contact with her Greek Cypriot father. Although she has sometimes been mistaken for a beurette (a girl of North African descent) she is legally and culturally French. This paper was written before she made public her conversion to Islam, which does not affect the analysis proposed here.

¹⁶ The punch line of ‘Me revoilà’ is: ‘J'rappe pour les tess', j'rappe pour les pav’, pour les tess, j'rappe pour les pav'tars', meaning ‘I rap for the projects, I rap for the detached houses …’ She dwells on the usual opposition between neighbourhoods with blocks of apartments (HLM, public housing projects intended for workers and underprivileged people) and neighbourhoods with detached houses (inhabited by lower middle‐class social strata); cité, in verlan (back slang) becomes tess (from téci); pav’ or pav'tar stands for pavillon (detached house with a small garden).

¹⁷ As illustrated in ‘Ma France à moi’, especially in the video clip of the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfGr-Hk_R48 (accessed 11 September 2008).

¹⁸ http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/politiques/elections2007/246190.FR.php (accessed 30 April 2008).

¹⁹ Taken here in its literal meaning: jeunes à capuche is a descriptive expression characterising and sometimes stigmatizing suburban youth wearing hoodies. Diam's and the youths she appears with in the video clip of ‘La boulette’ wear this type of clothing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU3FLXATG4A&feature=related; accessed 11 September 2008).

²⁰ She bluntly stated, ‘He's a monster’. (http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/politiques/elections2007/246190.FR.php; accessed 30 April 2008).

²¹ ‘I disagree with Sarkozy's social policies; I disagree with his repressive policies … the consequences of his policies towards French youth, for the future of French youth, frighten me’ (Interview given to the TV programme ‘En aparté’, Canal +, 23 May 2007).

²² ‘Je nous visualise à trois dans le parc, toi sur la balançoire / Puis tous les trois sur le sable’. (I can see the three of us in the park, you on the swing / Then the three of us in the sandbox). See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6Gn4BLMOF8&feature=related (accessed 11 September 2008).

²³ Diam's father left her and her mother, when she was about three years old; she tells of her feeling of abandonment in ‘Daddy’ (Brut de femme, Capitol/EMI, 2003) and underlines that at the end of the twentieth century her case was far from unique. In little speeches she interpolates between her raps during live appearances, Diam's frequently enjoins her listeners to ‘take advantage’ of their parents, when they are ‘lucky enough’ to stay with both of them (Ma vie mon live, Delabel/EMI, 2004).

²⁴ See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq11qJHYvAE (accessed 11 September 2008).

²⁵ See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfJMBX3A2CA (accessed 11 September 2008).

²⁶ See the documentary titled ‘Six mois dans ma bulle’ in Dans ma bulle, Hostile / EMI, 2006.

²⁷ Policemen are indeed castigated in Ministère AMER's ‘Sacrifice de poulet’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nzdV38IQLA; accessed 11 September 2008); Faf la Rage presents a different point of view in ‘J'ai honte’ where he portrays an honest cop, ashamed of his colleagues' behaviour (see Perrier 2000: 267–68 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j399aMlukKQ; accessed 11 September 2008).

²⁸ See Forgeon, Hervé and Mirand 2010.

²⁹ A baby girl abandoned by her father; a distressed teenager in a middle class neighbourhood; a young woman battered by her lover.

³⁰ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC3wsB4-XJI&feature=related (accessed 11 September 2008).

³¹ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU3FLXATG4A&feature=related (accessed 11 September 2008).

³² http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlCL4bAqois (accessed 11 September 2008).

³³ Especially than her ‘sisters’, Princess Aniès, Sté Strausz, Lady Laistee, Bams or Kenny Arkana who, in spite of their artistic talent and their social commitment, never reached near Diam's success.

³⁴ The campaign was launched under the auspices of several rappers who had been traumatised by the presence of Jean‐Marie Le Pen at the second ballot of the 2002 presidential election, an event which for many young French triggered a new political consciousness. As part of the campaign, a leaflet was added to the booklet accompanying the Dans ma bulle CD, and invited the ‘Children of the Republic’ to register and vote, arguing than ‘a ballot is worth ten Molotov cocktails’ and that it was now urgent that the voice of the youth be heard.

³⁵ ‘Ni de droite, ni de gauche’, neither rightists nor leftists.

³⁶ Zimbabwe even seems to offer a counter‐example. There, at a time when the country is suffering a series of dramatic crises, rap appears as the music of a privileged, careless, and unconcerned youth, and rappers are supported by the government (Palmberg 2004: 31–33).