Hip-hop turns 50: How French rap became the 'second nation' under a groove
Music historians agree that the birth of hip-hop culture happened on 11 August 1973 in an apartment in the Bronx, a New York City borough. Since then, the movement has gone through five decades of intense renewal and influenced a plethora of musicians around the world – including in France.
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On that fateful night in the Bronx, Jamaican-born Clive Campbell – better known as DJ Kool Herc – came to his sister's birthday bash where like-minded funk and soul DJs, producers and wannabe graffiti artists had gathered. And he mixed two records together, adding beats from one track to rhythmics from another.
Of course, the movement wasn't entirely born in a day. It derived slowly from different types of black music (from soul to rhythm and blues), and from the influence of pioneers in spoken words, like the Last Poets with Gil Scott-Heron, and many DJs.
According to the British music critic Dorian Lynskey, US rap giant Chuck D, of Public Enemy, always linked these poets to the birth of hip-hop, as the "roots of rap".
11 August 1973 still remains a symbolic moment, when the first hip-hop party took place.
And that's why the date is celebrated all around the world this year with commemorative events and screenings, from New York to Philadelphia, Bristol in western England and Paris, France.
What made the genre unique was the use of what is known as the four pillars: turntables, rapping, breakdancing and graffiti.
Soon, hip-hop took over the east and west coast of the US, but by the early 1980s, it was also inspiring underground producers in France.
And French hip-hop emerged
American hip-hop had not even entered the mainstream when it struck a chord with young men in the French suburbs, who felt an affinity with the strong social and political messages coming from the black ghettos in the US.
From the early 1980s, a few pioneers made rap take some Gallic roots, including Mathias Cassel, alias Rockin' Squat, who formed the Parisian group Assassin, and Philippe Fragione, alias Akhenaton, one of the lead vocalists of the Marseille group I AM.
Both spent time in the US where they say they were were impressed with the hip-hop culture.
From then, an entire movement boomed in France, fostering four decades of French rap, including celebrated bands like La Rumeur and NTM, but also MC Solaar and more recently JUL.
"French rap is definitely the second in the rap world," French rap expert and author Olivier Cachin told RFI English.
"It all started in the early 1980s, when the DJ Dee Nasty launched his radio show on Radio Nova in Paris," he added.
"One track probably had a major influence of them all: 'Rapper's Delight', by The Sugar Hill Gang. It became an enormous success worldwide, and influenced many youngsters."
In France, some activists really dug into it and travelled to the US from the 80s to immerse themselves in this culture, especially Dee Nasty, Akhenaton and Rockin' Squat, and adapted it in the French language.
Akhenaton told Cachin in an interview for RFI Musique: "On my 12th birthday, in 1980, one of my best friends gave me a Sugar Hill Gang EP, 'Jam Jam' I think, and I was hallucinating.
"We were incredibly lucky in Marseille. From 1980/81 we had shows that played funk and rap. I started listening to rap frantically because there was Philippe Subrini's Starting Black show on Radio Star.
"It was incredible. The history of rap in Marseille is different from that of Paris, it was not the same actors. As in Lyon, it was a parallel evolution: there was Dee Rock, Poptronic who rapped in French and in English."
He said that discovery changed his life.
"I said to myself that we could rap in a language other than English, and it stayed in the back of my mind. My first raps in 1984 were covers in English, I rapped on their texts on the B sides. And at the end of 1984, I wrote my first text in French."
A verbal trope and a social conscience
But, from there, it took time for French rap to develop, Cachin said, as the mainstream media rejected it.
"In France, as a very literary country, the verb was highlighted," he added. "And the rapping part of hip-hop took off."
The compilation 'Rappattitude', released in 1990, changed the game, but rap was still associated with gangs and violence in France, Cachin said.
The first wave of hip-hop relied on strong social and politically engaged lyrics, especially with La Rumeur and Casey.
In the mid-1990s rap exploded, especially with the film 'La Haine', set in the banlieue – depressed suburban housing estates – and featuring rap tracks.
Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, it was released in 1995 and starred Vincent Cassel, the brother of Rockin' Squat.
The new radio stations and the internet in the early 2000s gave hip-hop greater platforms allowing rap to become one of the most commercially successful genres in France, including in sales of concert tickets.
"Today, French hip-hop reaches a very wide range, from very underground and politicised trend to a more party-going, relaxed and commercial trend," Cachin said.
"There is not one overarching idea of French rap, it is many trends," he added.
Hip-hop gave birth to many movements in the world, from South Korea to Benin and Sweden, but France and French suburbs in particular remain its second home.
"To this day, some rappers still remain engaged with social issues, especially against police brutality, but it's not the majority," Cachin explained.
"French rap has evolved into a more commercial style, with voices like JUL and the 13'Organisé collective, but that's also true in the US. Public Enemy, NTM and I AM were from a different generation."
"Still, France remains the second nation of hip-hip in the world," he added.
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