A nice little video feature on France 24 English about rap in France.The report makes the point that the genre has been around in France for 30 years now, and the market for rap music in France is second only to the USA.
Nice to see France 24 giving a platform to French music, something it could perhaps do a bit more of, but it's good to see a serious news source giving respect to music, in particular one that is still seen by many as fundamentally controversial.
As last week's Urban Peace festival shows, rap is not only popular in France, but it is an artistically vibrant scene with a huge variety of voices and styles.
Hopefully it's only a matter of time until a French rapper makes a breakthrough into the international scene, There's not really been a French rap figure getting recognition in the anglo-saxon music world since MC Solaar in the 90s so it's certainly about time.
Again, the music industry and media remain shy of using music in a language other than English, but with the internet making entertainment less parochial, this may well change.
In the meantime, hats off to France 24 for running this. Now can we have more features about French music?
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