Re:french rap questions

John McNutt (janka@cs.utexas.edu)
Thu, 14 Sep 1995 15:16:14 -0500


>>Glad to see we're getting some discussion on french rap music. I love this
>>stuff.
>
>Me too! I don't have most of the artists mentioned so far. I do have, and
>like very much, MC Solaar (both on Jazzmatazz I and on his own). What is
>ironic to me is that I can't understand a word of it (since I don't speak
>French), but I like it for its rhythm. It seems to me that rapping in
>another language forces the use of different rhythms, and of course
>linguistics, in the rap (compared to English). Anyone else agree?

I think you are right, at least as far as French goes.... it may be just my
imagination but the language is full of unvoiced consonants like the 'k','s',
't' and 'p' sounds which, said rapidly, give a nice flow of 'clicking' sounds
which to me sounds almost like a percussion section of sorts....

This is particularly what drove me to listen to French rap in the first place,
since I don't really listen to any american rap other than Digable Planets.

I have heard some japanese rap as someone earlier has mentioned, and it seems
to capture a lot of the same type of rhythms....but I only heard one of the
songs. I have also heard some Russian rap, which just doesn't seem to
work... :>
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- John McNutt -
- janka@cs.utexas.edu -
- http://net.cs.utexas.edu/users/janka -
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