Music - Paris - page 713

Magic System from Côte d'Ivoire popularised zouglou (a kind of West African rap and
dance music) with its album Premier Gaou, and Congolese Koffi Olomide (b 1956) still
packs the halls. Also try to catch blind singing couple Amadou and Mariam - Rokia Traoré
( www.rokiatraore.net ) - from Mali, and Franco-Algerian DJ-turned-singer Rachid Taha
( www.rachidtaha.fr ) , whose music mixes Arab and Western musical styles with lyrics in
English, Berber and French.
No artist has cemented France's reputation in world music more than Paris-born Franco-
Congolese rapper, slam poet and three-time Victoire de la Musique-award winner Abd al
Malik ( www.abdalmalik.fr ) . His albums Gibraltar (2006), Dante (2008) and Château Rouge
(2010) are classics.
Rap
France is known for its rap, an original 1990s sound spearheaded by Senegal-born, Paris-
reared rapper MC Solaar and Suprême NTM (NTM being an acronym for a French expres-
sion far too offensive to print). Most big-name rappers are French 20-somethings of Arabic
or African origin whose prime preoccupation is the frustrations and fury of fed-up immig-
rants in the French suburbs. Take hot-shot rapper Disiz La Peste (b 1978), born in Amiens to
a Senegalese father and Belgian mother: his third album Histoires Extra-Ordinaires d'un
Jeune de Banlieue (The Extraordinary Stories of a Youth in the Suburbs; 2005) portrayed
just what its title suggested, as did his 'last' album Disiz the End (2009), after which he
morphed into Peter Punk and created a very different rock-punk-electro sound. In 2011 he
returned as rap artist Disiz La Peste, successfully releasing the album Lucide in 2012 and its
sequel Trans-Lucide - opening track entitled 'Fuck les problèmes' - in 2014.