sorry no posting from a long while, i'm really really busy.. i saw
this thread about french rap, i must say the scene in france has
considerably grown up in the last years, here's what comes to mind:
the "hottest" topics are MC solaar, whose new LP is apparently about to
be released (produced by la funk mob), and IAM, the rap possee from
marseille, that just released their latest LP (the title goes
something like "l'homme au mike d'argent"), and should be good.
other strong groups to check out are:
- NTM: now very famous, especially since they got censored because of
anti-cops lyrics (weird things are going on in france, especially in
the south:(). they are on the hardcore side of rap, and getting more
and more good at that (at the beginning, they sounded a bit like "we
are as bad as american gangstas, yeah!", now they really have that
strong and heavy sound, and the personalities of the two rappers make
NTM a very good group).
- Ministere Amer posse: check out Doc Gyneco's LP (strong lyrics with
a touch of humour, sometimes a bit macho though), and Stomy Bugsy's
one (not as good IMHO).
- Assassin: another hardcore group from the 18eme in Paris, quite good
as well, keeping it underground
- Jimmy Jay records: Solaar's ex producer now works with people like
democrates d and lamifa, check out cool sessions vol. 2 and other
things on Jimmy Jay records
- posse 501: solaar's posse - menelik (which i think is not claude
m'barali (solaar)'s brother...) and soon e mc... more on the cool
vein. not as hot as they used to be, imho
- DJs: the most important crew has a name i forgot now, but includes
the "la haine" famous Cut Killer (check out his comps "cut killer
show" vols 1 and 2), and Dr Old Skool, aka DJ Dee Nasty (a key person
on the french scene, check out his collaboration with Big Brother
Hakim).
- Le fromage's rap sublabel, Plug It! has several groups like Schkoonk
and Ste.
- what else? i'm certainly forgetting many of them, anyway the scene
has become quite big, and most importantly there is some commercial
crap like everywhere, but many big selling groups (IAM, NTM, Solaar)
deserve respect IMHO.. and underground is still alive, like radio
shows and freestyles on Radio Nova testify. as some of you probably
now, i'm living in Rome since 2 months now, so these informations
are perhaps a little old, and most importantly i can't provide contact
info for the labels from here, sorry!
another important thing i'd like to mention is that the french
housey/trip hop/jungle scene, that gets waved a lot these days (from
daft punk to dimitri from paris, la funk mob, mighty bop and dj cam)
has a strong hip/hop culture, which is very important for me, and
perhaps makes this french sound so special: you can really feel the
funk in daft punk, not to mention la funk mob or dj cam strictly hip
hop productions...
have to leave now, hope this of interest to some of you, and a big
SALUT!!! to bambi that wrote a message a few weeks ago on this list:)!
Daniel