Hip-Hop Hybridity in a Glocalized World: African and Muslim Diasporic Discourses in French Rap Music

THE GLOBAL STUDIES JOURNAL

Volume 2, Number 3

Hip-Hop Hybridity for a Glocalized World: African and Muslim Diasporic Discourses in French Rap Music David Drissel

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THE GLOBAL STUDIES JOURNAL http://www.globalstudiesjournal.com/ First published in 2009 in Champaign, Illinois, USA by Common Ground Publishing LLC www.CommonGroundPublishing.com. © 2009 (individual papers), the author(s) © 2009 (selection and editorial matter) Common Ground Authors are responsible for the accuracy of citations, quotations, diagrams, tables and maps. All rights reserved. Apart from fair use for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act (Australia), no part of this work may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. For permissions and other inquiries, please contact . ISSN: 1835-4432 Publisher Site: http://www.globalstudies-journal.com/ THE GLOBAL STUDIES JOURNAL is peer-reviewed, supported by rigorous processes of criterion-referenced article ranking and qualitative commentary, ensuring that only intellectual work of the greatest substance and highest significance is published. Typeset in Common Ground Markup Language using CGCreator multichannel typesetting system http://www.commongroundpublishing.com/software/

Hip-Hop Hybridity for a Glocalized World: African and Muslim Diasporic Discourses in French Rap Music David Drissel, Iowa Central Community College, IA, USA Abstract: When it comes to hip-hop, France is particularly noteworthy since it has the second largest market for rap music production and consumption in the world, following the U.S. This paper proposes that the discourse of French rap music both reflects and influences the construction of hybridized black-inflected identities, particularly among minority youth living in diaspora; i.e., physically separated and widely dispersed from their ancestral homelands on a permanent or semi-permanent basis. In this regard, diasporic French hip-hoppers are involved in a complex process of reconfiguring and synthesizing relevant idioms and vernaculars found not only in global hip-hop and their “native” culture, but also in their “host” country of France. Drawing on framing theory, this paper investigates both FrenchAfrican and French-Muslim frames and related anti-racist perspectives articulated in French rap music, which have been socially and cognitively organized into diasporic discourses. Research questions addressed include the following: How have global flows of people, ideas, and artifacts, impacted hiphop’s origins and metamorphosis in France? In what ways have the African and Muslim diasporas influenced French hip-hop? What social and demographic factors have encouraged diasporic youth to adopt black-inflected identities tied to hip-hop? This paper analyzes a wide variety of sources, including the lyrical content of selected rap songs recorded by North and West African Muslims, living in France. Keywords: Hip-Hop, Rap Music, African Diaspora, New African Diaspora, Muslim Diaspora, Diasporic Youth, Youth Subcultures, Globalization, Glocalization, Banlieues, Hybridization, African Americans, French North Africans, Cool Islam, Blackness, Franco-Maghrebi, Reconfiguration, Rai

Introduction

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IP-HOP IS OFTEN depicted as the world’s leading pop-culture phenomenon and is arguably the best-known musical genre to originate in the United States since rock and roll. As a global youth subculture1 that includes rap music, urban graffiti, and breakdancing, hip-hop is frequently a lightning rod for controversy. In this regard, hip-hop is either praised or panned, depending on the sociopolitical vantage point of the observer. While many people characterize hip-hop in positive terms as a potentially liberating and empowering force for oppressed minorities and poor people around the world;2 others depict the subculture in highly negative terms, contending that the reputedly gang-

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Youth subcultures can be defined as groups of teenagers and young adults sharing certain common cultural features, yet appearing to have values, norms, roles, and attitudes that differ substantially from the larger culture (Johnston and Snow 1998:474). 2 For instance, Allen (1996) argues that rap music appropriately focuses public attention on the needs and aspirations of impoverished people living in predominantly black and brown communities. The Global Studies Journal Volume 2, Number 3, 2009, http://www.globalstudiesjournal.com/, ISSN 1835-4432 © Common Ground, David Drissel, All Rights Reserved, Permissions: [email protected]

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inspired rap music of hip-hop tends to glorify narcissism, hedonism, intolerance, misogyny, and violence.3 Initially reflecting the pervasive fears, concerns, and muted aspirations of African-American and Hispanic “ghetto youth” in New York City’s South Bronx of the 1970s, hip-hop has been disseminated around the world during the last few decades. Not only has hip-hop been embraced by many white suburban youths in North America, it has become increasingly commonplace in much of the Third World. Certainly, globalization – as epitomized in this instance by mostly U.S.-based corporations producing and marketing rap music and related music videos, movies, and clothing to virtually every international market – has played an important role in shaping and galvanizing the growing popularity of hip-hop; while purveying the media-enhanced impression of a distinctly Americanized, culturally hegemonic, phenomenon. However, it is a misnomer to portray hip-hop as a single monolithic subculture tied exclusively to its American origins. Nor is hip-hop merely the latest U.S.-spawned homogenized pop-culture commodity, embraced blindly by youthful consumers worldwide. Though mimicking American pop-culture trends is undoubtedly a factor in hip-hop’s global appeal, an eclectic mode of multicultural syncretism often occurs. According to Klein (2003), “Globalized culture produces difference because of the different everyday life contexts of the consumers” (43). Around the world, young people have modified hip-hop to address their particular societal needs and concerns; thus exhibiting a dynamic type of glocalization; i.e., cross-cultural interactions synthesizing the global with the local.4 In this respect, hip-hop often undergoes a process of “recontextualization;”5 i.e., “borrowing” cultural objects from one setting for the purpose of applying them in a different social context. Lull (1995) refers to this procedure as the “hybridization” and “indigenization” of rap, contending that American hip-hop is often fused with national/local discourses to produce distinctly new style formations. Even within the U.S., local and regional variations in hiphop are quite pronounced.6 Boyd (2003) argues that “it is precisely this series of moves from the local, to the regional, to the national, and even to the global that demonstrate this expression of hip-hop’s cultural identity in the broadest sense, confounding any attempts to read blackness as monolithic” (19). Motley and Henderson (2008) contend that hip-hop effectively transcends boundaries of race, ethnicity, language, and geography. As the authors note: While the core essence and elements of hip-hop are shared by all members of the hiphop culture, the aesthetic is adapted to suit multiple national cultures, localized conditions and grievances (248).

Examining French Hip-Hop When it comes to hip-hop, France is particularly noteworthy since it has the second largest market for rap music production and consumption in the world, following the U.S.; while also maintaining the fifth largest market for music sales worldwide (Negus 1994:159-160). 3

For example, DeGenova (1995) contends that hip-hop in general and gangsta rap in particular have encouraged predatory, violent behavior and nihilism in society. 4 For more on the global hybridization of youth subcultures see Nilan and Feixa (2006:2-3). 5 See Androutsopoulos and Scholz (2002). 6 For instance, there are long-standing differences between the East Coast and West Coast American rap styles involving lyrical themes, accents, etc.

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On average, French hip-hop records comprise ten percent of the music production in France and one quarter of the top one hundred records played by local radio stations (Schwartz 1999). Recent figures indicate that Francophone rap “dominates the French FM band” (Silverstein 2002:53). Significantly, the vast majority of French hip-hop artists are second- and third-generation children of North African and West African immigrants that are predominantly Muslim. In particular, ethnic Arabs with ancestral ties to Algeria, Morocco, and other North African countries are significantly represented in the French hip-hop industry and related subculture (Prévos 2001:44). In large measure because of hip-hop’s historic connection to African-American culture and traditions, French rap musicians and their fans have been exposed vicariously to black concerns, argot, values, and symbols. This paper proposes that the discourse of French rap music both reflects and influences the construction of hybridized black-inflected identities, particularly among minority youth living in diaspora; i.e., physically separated and widely dispersed from their ancestral homelands on a permanent or semi-permanent basis. Such diasporas are not merely descriptive and historical, but also directly influential in the presentera; enabling widely dispersed people to envision themselves as a “community” (Cornwell and Stoddard 2001:7). This paper postulates that diasporic French hip-hoppers are involved in a complex process of reconfiguring and synthesizing relevant idioms and vernaculars found not only in global hip-hop and their “native” culture, but also in their “host” country of France. Research questions addressed in this paper include the following: How have global flows of people, ideas, and artifacts, impacted hip-hop’s origins and metamorphosis in France? In what ways have the African Diaspora and related conceptions of “blackness” influenced French hip-hop? What social and demographic factors have encouraged diasporic youth to adopt black-inflected identities tied to hip-hop? How have the incipient Muslim Diaspora and related pan-Islamic movements influenced French hip-hop and the construction of collective identities7 among French-Muslim youth in particular? In order to address such questions, I have analyzed a wide variety of qualitative sources, including previously published interviews with hip-hop artists and the lyrical content of selected rap songs recorded by North and West African Muslims, living in France. As a distinct type of socio-cultural communication, rap music lyrics and related symbols of the hip-hop subculture can reveal the existence of various personal and collective identities, often in a state of flux. Drawing on framing theory, I have investigated both French-African and French-Muslim frames8 and related anti-racist perspectives articulated in French rap music, which have been socially and cognitively organized into diasporic discourses. Importantly, such frames contradict many of the dominant sociopolitical narratives in France. According to Nelson et al. (1997), “Framing is the process by which a communication source, such as a news organization, defines and constructs a political issue or public controversy” (221). In this regard, French rap music – acting as a subcultural source of counter-hegemonic information – is framed to resonate with the social experiences, values, beliefs, and concerns of French 7

Based primarily on the shared experiences of everyday life, collective identity refers to “an individual’s cognitive, moral, and emotional connection with a broader community, category, practice, or institution” (Polletta and Jasper 2001:285). 8 Defined by Goffman (1974), frames are a “schemata of interpretations” that enable individuals “to locate, perceive, identify, and label” various events and occurrences within their own life experiences.

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minority youth. Paraphrasing Snow and Benford (1988:198), such “frame alignments” are essential components in the micro-mobilization of social movement participants. When individual movement frames are connected to a larger belief system sanctioned by potential movement participants, a frame alignment occurs (Snow et al. 1986:464).

Conceptualizing the African Diaspora The ideological and demographic origins of hip-hop are tied to the centuries-old African Diaspora; which was the consequence of a racist slave trade that violently snatched Africans from their continental/tribal homeland, dispersing them in alien, inhospitable environments. First articulated by such black notables as Martin Delany in the late 19th century and Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. Du Bois in the early 20th century, the concept of an African Diaspora was later revived during the turbulent 1960s; often being utilized as a sociopolitical metaphor for black suffering, colonial oppression, and a rediscovery of African roots. In contrast to the integrationist perspective of Martin Luther King and a majority of civil rights activists of the era, “black nationalists” affiliated with the Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers, the Organization of Afro-American Unity, and militant factions within the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), frequently articulated their cause in diasporic terms. Stokely Carmichael, the SNCC director who popularized the term “black power” in the late sixties, contended that it was imperative for American blacks to connect with Africa not only in a cultural sense, but also politically and economically, with a primary focus on resisting the West’s “external domination” of Africa. As he explained: Black power, to us, means that black people see themselves as a part of a new force, sometimes called the Third World; that we see our struggle as closely related to liberation struggles around the world. We must hook up with these struggles (quoted in Walters 1997:60). Though considered a fringe perspective for decades, a growing number of Western intellectuals began to embrace the concept of an African Diaspora beginning in the sixties. Most notably, George Shepperson argued in a seminal 1965 essay that the circumstances behind the global dispersal of Africans were similar to what had been found previously in studies of the three “classic” ethno-national diasporas: the Jewish, the Greek, and the Armenian. Each diaspora had the following elements in common with the African case: “an origin in the scattering and uprooting of communities,” a history of “traumatic and forced departure,” and “the sense of a real or imagined relationship to a ‘homeland,’ mediated through the dynamics of collective memory and the politics of ‘return’” (quoted in Edwards 2001:51-52). More recently, several scholars (e.g., Hall 1990, Gilroy 1993, Cohen 1997) have portrayed African-Americans as part of a broadly globalized, “cultural diaspora;” which is based on much more than simply ethno-national descriptions. This non-essentialist approach emphasizes the role of diverse “unifying factors” such as what is found in literature, music, and the visual arts; that are often transnational and cosmopolitan in both content and consumption. Such cultural features have encouraged collective identity constructions and reconstructions among diasporic Africans in a variety of “host” societies (Sheffer 2003:86-87). According to Gilroy (1993), the African Diaspora is neither culturally monolithic nor immutable; rather, it has effectively engendered the formation of transnational cultural hy-

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bridities throughout the “Black Atlantic.” As a result of centuries of slavery and colonialism, Africans have been transported to various countries in the Americas and Western Europe, but in the process of adapting to their new social environment developed a “double consciousness;” meaning that they became culturally connected not only to the native continent of their ancestors, but also to the “adopted” land of their birth. Thus, diasporic African identities are destabilizing and subverting to many of the traditional conceptions of place and belonging. As Gilroy (1997) contends: The assimilation of blacks is not a process of acculturation but of cultural syncretism. Accordingly, their self-definitions and cultural expressions draw on a plurality of black histories and politics…An intricate web of cultural and political connections binds blacks here to blacks elsewhere. At the same time, they are linked into the social relations of this country. Both dimensions have to be examined and the contradictions and continuities which exist between them must be brought out (340).

Conceptualizing the Muslim Diaspora The idea of a global Muslim Diaspora has surfaced only in recent years, substantially expanding upon the traditional concept of a diaspora based on shared ancestral origins within a particular nation, state, or ethnic group. The growing popularity of this incipient religiousdiasporic construct has been bolstered by the presence of an ever-increasing number of Muslims living in Western Europe and North America, many of whom have never visited their ancestral homelands in the Middle East, North Africa, or other parts of the world.9 In addition, Muslims living in Western states with predominantly white Christian majorities generally are perceived as a relatively cohesive, “racialized” minority group; due in large measure to their distinctive religious rituals and ethno-national customs. Various forms of social exclusion experienced by Muslims in the West further contribute to such racialized depictions (Sheffer 2003:66-67). Compared to their disaporic elders, second- and third-generation Muslims in Europe and North America are more likely to consider religion as their most important identity marker, effectively trumping ethnicity, nationality, or citizenship status.10 This particular social trend has been encouraged by the proliferation of pan-Islamic movements and related social networks. Previously, Islam was almost always tied primarily to individual states and territories that varied widely in practices depending on the national-cultural milieu. Though this is still the case today in many locales, the modern globalization of Islam has resulted in the faith becoming increasingly “deculturalized,” particularly among Muslims in the West (Roy 2003:23). Thus, the proponents of the idea of a Muslim Diaspora contend “that despite the multiplicity of their countries of origin, Muslims have much in common and therefore should organize and act as cohesive social-political entities in their host countries” (Sheffer 2003:67).

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According to recent figures, there are approximately 23 million Muslims in Europe, comprising approximately five percent of the population. Europe’s Muslim population has “more than doubled in the past three decades and the rate of growth is accelerating” (Savage 2004:26). Within the U.S., there are approximately 2.35 million Muslims (though figures vary with some estimates as high as five million). (Cesari 2004:11). 10 A recent poll revealed that Muslim youth in the West are more likely than their parents to view themselves primarily as Muslims (Pew Research Center 2007:31).

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Significantly, recent years have witnessed the “re-Islamization” (return to the fold) of large numbers of Muslim teens and young adults in the West. The younger generation of diasporic Muslims appears to be searching for “a more authentic form of Islam than the one their parents practice” (Benjamin and Simon 2006:120). Pan-Islamic and transnational neofundamentalist versions of Islam, in particular, have gained new sources of support among Muslim youth around the world (Roy 2004:2). Consequently, diasporic terminology is being utilized increasingly by Muslim youth in referring to the concept of an Islamic “community of believers” (ummah). Such a collective identity is readily apparent among Muslim youth interacting with their peers on MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and other social networking websites (Drissel 2007). In this respect, the ummah has become the new imaginary “homeland” for millions of diasporic Muslims. As Mandaville (2001) notes, Muslims are framing the ummah as “an object of diasporic desire” (109).

Diasporic Origins of Hip-Hop Hip-hop originated as an inherently Afrocentric, yet highly multicultural, youth movement that was influenced by centuries of diasporic artistic expression, racist oppression, and socioeconomic exploitation. Several scholars (e.g., Smitherman 1997; Keyes 2008) have traced the origins of hip-hop and rap back to the oral communication practices found among black tribes in sub-Saharan West Africa. Most notably, the traditional African griot or “bard” is described as a wandering orator/poet/musician who was responsible for delivering commentary on both cultural matters and current events. As Keyes recounts, the bard was “a storytellersinger and above all a historian who chronicles the nation’s history and transmits cultural traditions and mores through performance” (5). Smitherman states that African oral traditions strongly emphasized “the power of the word in human life;” thus contending that “the rapper is a postmodern African griot” (4). Leland (2004:5-6) adds that the term “hip” (hipi) originated among the Wolof people of West Africa centuries ago. Literally meaning to “open one’s eyes,” the concept of hip was transported to America by Senegalese and Gambian slaves. Various researchers (e.g., Keyes 2008; Mitchell 2001) have pointed to hip-hop’s diasporic antecedents in the “slave culture” of the American South, such as the “call-and-response” field hollers and work songs of black slaves. Other hip-hop precursors emerging within southern black culture include charismatic black preaching and ritualized word games such as “the dozens”11 and “signifyin.”12 Such practices were largely transmitted from southern locales to northern urban centers as a result of the Great Migration of the early to mid-20th century. Additional cultural attributes reportedly contributing to hip-hop include scat singing, be bop jazz, skip-rope rhymes, Mohammad Ali’s boasts, Malcolm X’s poetic polemics, Black Panthers’ slogans, “blaxploitation” films,13 and the music and lyrics of funk artists such as James Brown and George Clinton of Parliament Funkadelic (Mitchell 2001:4; Rose 2008:21). 11

As Keyes (2008) explains, “The dozens (also known in contemporary culture as ‘snaps’) is the oldest term for the game of exchanging insults” (10). 12 According to Keyes (2008), “Signifyin occurs when one makes an indirect statement about a situation or another person; the meaning is often allusive and, in some cases, indeterminate” (10). 13 These were movies that starred mostly black actors and specifically targeted urban black audiences; hence “exploiting” a niche market. Such films often dealt with ghetto life in a gritty, yet often stereotypical, manner. Notable examples of blaxploitation movies include Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song (1971) and Shaft (1971).

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Hip-hop was not created in a social vacuum; rather, several distinct multicultural influences coalesced in the South Bronx of the mid-1970s, leading to the formation of hip-hop. From its very start, hip-hop incorporated hybridized frames that were both local and global, rhythmically articulated by diasporic African-Americans, Jamaican-Americans, and Puerto Ricans, within the street-level social spaces of impoverished inner-city neighborhoods. Hiphop was diffused in New York City through a “cross-cultural communication network,” which included ubiquitous graffiti tags on subways and flyers posted on tenement walls, spreading information about an exciting new movement. In an era of modern communication technologies, this network eventually disseminated hip-hop beyond its original diasporic metropolitan base to other American cities in which “marginalized black and Hispanic communities…picked up on the tenor and energy in New York hip-hop” (Rose 2008:26).

Diasporic Frames in American Hip-Hop Several of the earliest pioneers of hip-hop embraced Afrocentric/black-nationalist perspectives that included diasporic imagery. Most noteworthy in this regard was Afrika Bambaataa (Kevin Donavan); formerly a Bronx gang leader who adopted a legendary Zulu name after converting to the Nation of Islam (Keyes 2002:48-49). As a result of being inspired by African history and depictions of mighty Zulu warriors in popular culture, Bambaataa established the “Universal Zulu Nation” (UZN) in 1974. The group became a tribal-like association of DJs, graffiti artists, breakdancers, and homeboys. Acting as a kind of quasi-religious fraternal organization, UZN actively promoted the peaceful resolution of conflicts among gangs, crews, and other inner-city rivals (George 1998:18). Popularly known as the “godfather” of hip-hop, Bambaataa was artistically eclectic and sampled music from Africa, the Caribbean, and even German sources, such as the electronic band Kraftwerk. His music reflected and reinforced his stated philosophical commitment to global unity. Bambaataa framed the hip-hop movement as authentically “pan-African” (including Islamic influences) which apparently sparked its growth (Keyes 2002:48-49). As he noted, hip-hop was the direct cultural offspring of the black nationalist/civil rights movements of the 1960s: I always had an understanding of teachers such as the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and Minister Louis Farrakhan and...watching the Black Panthers, Martin Luther King and the rest of our great leaders that were doing a strong knowledge thing…So by pulling all factions together, we made this whole cultural movement called hip-hop” (quoted in Keyes 2002:49). Over the years, many African-American hip-hop artists have cited similar influences. For example, the Long Island rap band Public Enemy has often utilized the political slogans of the Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam, and Malcolm X. Using angry countercultural tones, the band has embraced both black pride and the African Diaspora in the context of opposing oppression. “Fight the Power” - a 1989 song featured in Spike Lee’s hip-hop laden movie, Do the Right Thing - asserts that “rednecks” have sought to dominate blacks for the past “four hundred years;” i.e., from the beginning of African slavery in North America to the present era. In response to such racist tyranny, the band calls for “power to the people no delay, to make everybody see in order to fight the powers that be.”

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More recently, Chicago rapper Kanye West has employed diasporic frames in his songs. In “Never Let Me Down” (2004), for instance, West alludes positively to having “the heart of Kunta Kinte” – the central character of Alex Haley’s African-American diasporic novel and TV series, Roots: The Saga of an American Family. Bemoaning racial hatred and rampant materialism in “All Falls Down,” West raps that blacks today are futilely “trying to buy back our forty acres.” This is a historic reference to the land allotments that were temporarily granted to newly freed slaves by the federal government during the early days of Reconstruction. As African-Americans attempt to enrich themselves in today’s society and achieve the ever-elusive American dream, they often encounter a new type of oppression that is analogous in some respects to slavery. As West raps, “And for that paper, look how low we a’stoop; even if you in a Benz, you still a nigga in a coop/coupe.” An important factor that has helped to disseminate the idea of a Muslim Diaspora around the world is the growing number of African-American hip-hop performers who have embraced Islam in recent years. Rappers such as Chuck D, Ice Cube, Nas, Mos Def, Common, Eve, and Paris, often incorporate various Islamic themes and messages into their songs, CD liner notes, and public interviews. Several hip-hop aficionados contend that the “language of rap” and the Quran are very similar in structure and style (Alim 2005:266). Mos Def (Dante Smith), who converted to Islam at age thirteen in his native Brooklyn, observes that both hip-hop and the Quran contain concise lyrical meanings that are easily disseminated in highly cadenced fashion. “Hip-hop and the texts of Quran are both forms of poetry,” he states, and “both possess a rhyme scheme that conveys essential information” (quoted in Halila 2005:38). Islam has even been described as hip-hop’s “official religion” (Alim 2005:264).

African and Muslim Diasporas in France Over the past several decades, France has become increasingly diverse in terms of ethnicity and religion, largely due to the relatively rapid influx of new migrants arriving from former French colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. Though the French government does not compile official records on ethnicity or race, social scientists have estimated that the French population is approximately 87 percent “white” (55 million people with mostly French or other European backgrounds), nine percent North African (5.5 million people with predominant North African/Arab origins), three percent “black” (two million people of mostly West African or Afro-Caribbean origin), and one percent Asian (half a million people of mainly Indochinese background).14 Reflecting the demographic and sociopolitical realities of the former French Empire, the vast majority of non-white migrants and their offspring in France constitute a diasporic “postcolonial minority culture” (Cesari 2004:12). For the most part, France’s diasporic community is African in continental origin – either of the North African Maghreb15 or West African regions.16 France, as the former imperial

14

Reported in The Economist (May 26, 2009), posted online at http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13377324 15 This is the centuries-old Arab name for the socio-geographic region of North Africa that includes Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya. In Arabic, the term literally means “place of sunset” or “western.” 16 This region includes countries such as Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Guinea, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, and Niger.

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power in those areas, has been the prime recipient of this multi-state New African Diaspora;17 which is the product of post-colonialism and relatively new patterns of migration fueled by globalization, rather than the original slave trade. In contrast to the “classic” African Diaspora of centuries past, a large percentage of dispersed persons involved in the modern African Diaspora are perceived to be non-black; e.g., Maghrebi-Arabs. Known colloquially in France as beurs,18 Arabs frequently have parents or grandparents who fled Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, or other countries of the Maghreb due to political instability and massive economic turmoil in the 1960s and early seventies. Algeria, the wartorn former colony of France, was a prime source of low-wage workers for French public works projects for years until the French government sharply curtailed immigration in the mid-seventies. Algerians and other Maghrebis are overwhelmingly Muslim, which further distinguishes them from the general French population and most other minorities in the country. Importantly, France has the largest Muslim population of any West European country, while one third of France’s Muslim population is under the age of twenty (Savage 2004:28). Officially, France has a policy of “cultural assimilation” based on “Franco-conformity;” i.e., citizenship necessitates becoming unequivocally French in terms of national identity – without regard to ethnicity, race, or religion. As a result, all institutions of government are required to be formally color-blind and secular in every respect, leading to controversial initiatives such as the banning of Muslim headscarves and other “religious” accoutrements from public schools. But despite the official veneer of assimilation, non-whites often face various forms of state-sponsored discrimination in France. For instance, random I.D. checks of minorities are commonplace, while official requests for French citizenship from the children of immigrants are often denied due to minor legal infractions or other dubious criteria. Consequently, hundreds of thousands of permanent residents never acquire the coveted “French national identity” (i.e., citizenship), which is often a prerequisite for employment in various sectors of the economy (Keaton 2006:11-12). In contrast to America’s traditional black-white racial binary, France tends to be divided unofficially into the “mutually-exclusive categories” of Français (“native” white French) and immigrés (non-white “immigrants”) (Huq 2003:196). This de facto dichotomy has grown more acute in recent years as xenophobic/Islamophobic sentiments have intensified among “native” French;19 while the number of “hate crimes” directed against “immigrants” has increased substantially (Swedenburg 2001:73). Moreover, various forms of racial discourse have become prevalent in society, including the common descriptors of noir (black), blanc (white) and beur. Though non-white minorities in France are officially considered French (especially if they have attained citizenship); the general population mostly perceives them as “foreign.” Increasingly, the English term “black” is being used instead of noir, which connects France’s minority population to “a U.S. type of consciousness permeating France and parts of Europe” (Keaton 2006:7).

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The term, “New African Diaspora” increasingly has been used in academic parlance (e.g., Koser 2003), referring to relatively recent waves of African emigration. 18 This is a somewhat derisive French slang term for “Arabs.” 19 According to the results of a national survey published in 2000, “An alarming 69% of the ‘French’ called themselves ‘racists’ and indicated that there were too many ‘foreigners’ in France.” Arabs were described in the report as the main “target” of such racist/xenophobic sentiments among “native” French (Keaton 2006:50).

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Franco-Maghrebins and other diasporic minorities often live in impoverished suburban slums located on the peripheries of major urban areas, in contrast to the typical U.S. pattern of inner-city ghettoization. Known as banlieues, such “outer suburbs” contain mostly highrise public housing projects that are socially and spatially isolated from “native” French neighborhoods and business districts. The vast majority of banlieues have experienced deindustrialization (i.e., massive closing of factories) in recent decades, leading to “white flight” from the housing projects and the concomitant residential segregation of under-skilled “immigrant” workers. With unemployment rates rising to as high as forty percent in many banlieues, poverty and social discontent have become endemic. As Keaton (2006) has observed, “Public housing located in the most disadvantaged outer cities of major urban areas has become a dumping ground for the least desired populations” (63). Problematically, suburban minority youth in particular are often stereotyped; thus encountering social stigmatization and marginalization. As Swedenburg (2001) observes, the multiethnic banlieues are “racialized” in public discourse; “and the symbol of all that is ‘other’ in France is, most centrally, the young, ‘immigrant’ Arab Muslim, the zonard of the banlieue” (73). Keaton (2006) notes that such young people are “typecast as violent delinquents, feared as terrorists in the making, and objectified as criminals – the fodder of prisons and the targets of racial profiling, secular laws, and curfews that apply solely to their neighborhoods” (2). Waquant (1999) postulates that French societal depictions of beur and noir youth as “suitable enemies” that frequently face arrest and incarceration, is similar in many respects to America’s dominant racial discourse concerning “dangerous” young black men in urban ghettos. Accordingly, the author observes, “Foreigners and quasi-foreigners would be the ‘blacks’ of Europe” (216).

African Diasporic Frames in French Hip-Hop From the start of the French hip-hop scene, the African Diaspora – both in its classic and modern incarnations - has been a major theme, as illustrated by the popularity in France of Afrika Bambaataa’s Universal Zulu Nation (UZN). Established in the early eighties, UZN’s Parisian chapter played a prominent role in introducing rap music and Afrocentric ideologies to young people living in the banlieues (Prévos 2001:42). UZN’s growth was fueled in large measure by “The New York City Rap Tour,” the first major series of hip-hop performances in France, which occurred in 1982. The tour featured African-American artists such as Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmixer DST, Fab 5 Freddy, Mr. Freeze, and the Rock Steady Crew. Significantly, UZN served as a direct inspiration for several of the earliest Francophone rap bands, including Assassin, Les Little, and Sens Unik (Prévos 2002:7-8). Assassin is a multi-ethnic “hardcore” rap band that formed in a northern Parisian banlieue in 1985. The influence of UZN’s Afrocentric philosophy is clearly evident in the band’s 1992 single, A qui l’histoire? (“To Whom History?”), which strongly criticizes the French system of public education; noting that French history textbooks and teachers tend to depict French colonialism slavishly in a positive light, while ignoring the historic contributions of Africans and other non-Western peoples. In the song, Assassin calls for a “revolutionary,” pluralistic approach to history in the classroom; thus taking into account the growing “mix of cultures” found in France’s public schools. The current school curriculum, the band raps, “does not account for all civilizations” and thus encourages “racism, intolerance and individualism.” 130

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Probably the best-known Francophone rapper in the world, MC Solaar (Claude M’Barali), was born in Senegal (a former French colony in West Africa) and grew up in France. He directly credits Bambaataa’s Zulu Nation for his initial exposure to hip-hop.20 In much of his music, Solaar explores diasporic subject matter, addressing the complex sociopolitical conditions that have prompted millions of Africans to leave their homelands and journey to the Americas and Western Europe. The album cover of Cinquième (2001), for instance, pictures a shirtless Solaar standing next to other black men, seemingly imprisoned and undergoing transport on a slave ship. The album contains the track, Lève-Toi et Rap (“Stand up and Rap”), which explains the circumstances behind his family’s migration from Dakar, Senegal to the Parisian banlieue of Villeneuve-Saint-Georges when he was only six-months old. In the song, he raps about his own diasporic connections to Africa and in the process asserts a “black” identity, which stands in sharp contrast to the official color-blindness of French assimilationism. As “refugees” of the New African Diaspora, Franco-African rappers reveal strong ideological affinities and connections with the continent, particularly in comparison to their African-American counterparts. This is due in large measure to the relative geographic proximity and modern time frame of the Franco-African Diaspora. According to Cannon (1997), such rappers tend to have “a closer physical and therefore lees mythical relationship” to their ‘pays d’origine’ (African homeland), than black rappers in the U.S. (164). The direct immediacy and relevancy of the diasporic experience for French-African rappers often leads to utopian-style descriptions of their ancestral homeland and highly critical assessments of the West. According to Helenon (2006), French rappers tend to “glorify the African past and extol its values, which they often oppose to those of Western societies, considered to be on the wane politically as well as morally” (152). Many of the songs of French-African rappers directly or indirectly refer to ethno-diasporic issues such as the global origins of humanity in Africa, the history of slavery, the destruction of African civilizations by Europeans, and the Algerian “war of independence” against the French in the 1950s and sixties (Gross et al 1994:20). For instance, the song “Lucy,” recorded by the Francophone rapper B-Love in 1992, refers in Afrocentric style to “the oldest skeleton” in the world found by archeologists - a black African woman nicknamed “Lucy.” As B-Love proudly raps, “Lucy is the mother of us all” (quoted in Prévos 2001:44). IAM, a multiethnic rap band that includes members of North and West African ancestry from the French Mediterranean city of Marseilles, often focuses on Afrocentric themes and issues. The African Diaspora is the main subject matter of IAM’s controversial song, Les tam-tam de l’Afrique (“The Tom Toms from Africa”). The track focuses directly on the diasporic history of African slavery, including the violent seizure of blacks, the genocidal “Middle Passage,” and the cruel ravages of the American plantation system. In the song, the group samples Stevie Wonder’s classic tune, “Past Time Paradise;” symbolically painting an ironic picture of a lost African utopia, which as been plundered mercilessly by greedy slave-traders. The implication is that the West – including France – has continued to ravage the Dark Continent since the abolition of slavery, through various forms of political imperialism and economic exploitation.

20

MC Solaar made these remarks in an interview on CNN.com (“Q&A”), posted online at http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TRAVEL/02/03/cairo.qa/

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In spite of such negative critiques of Western civilization and French society, many diasporic rappers seem to recognize that they are inextricably linked to French urban life and its cosmopolitan modernity. In this sense, they exist both within and between two worlds. The Franco-Moroccan rap band, 113 (named for a Marseille low-income banlieue apartment building in which the band members lived during much of their youth), reveals this apparent double consciousness in the track, Tonton du Bled. The song tells the story of a young FrancoMaghrebin man who experiences conflicting emotions after having been sent away by his family to visit his ancestral Moroccan homeland for a month. He bemoans being disconnected from his urbane existence in France, noting that he misses his favorite TV shows, video games, CDs, and other Western commodities that are unavailable in such rural Third World locales (Helenon 2006:158-159). More problematically, members of the Algerian rap band, Intik, fled their homeland as teenagers and came to France seeking asylum in the late 1980s, due primarily to violent repression by the military in Algeria. Ironically, the name “Intik” means, “everything is going great;” which was purposefully a contradictory reference to the very horrific situation the band members experienced while growing up in Algeria. As one of Intik’s songs emphasizes, Algeria’s highly repressive government “stole our youth.” Rapping in both French and Arabic, the band often emphasizes a diasporic longing for their North African homeland, while at the same time articulating a profound sense of relief in being separated from Algeria’s internecine violence and music censorship. Intik’s lead rapper, Youssef, explained in a recent interview how American hip-hop bands such as Public Enemy had inspired him and his band mates to stand up to tyranny. As he recounts: Public Enemy was one of the first groups who, I won’t say influenced us, but who brought out this rage in us. They virtually brought down senators in the States, so for us they were examples. They were young at the time, and they weren’t afraid of opening their mouths. So we said, we’re Algerian; we must do something for our country. Some people took the route of resisting by fighting with weapons, but us, we’re against violence, so our resistance was using our song, our lyrics; the language of words, not of weapons.21

Framing “Blackness” in French Hip-Hop French hip-hoppers of all ethnicities tend to identify with “black” imagery and symbolism emanating from North America. In fact, many French rappers directly and indirectly make “black identity assertions” in their songs and public personas. (Huq 2006:24). Even among the general public in France, hip-hop connotes noirceur (“blackness”); though in recent years hip-hop has become enormously popular with young people from a wide variety of demographic backgrounds – including the white middle class (Huq 2003:198). Tellingly, some of the earliest French rap bands, emerging in the 1980s, adopted African-American inspired names such as Assassin, New Generation MC, and Suprême NTM.22 Such groups appeared initially to mimic African-American rap styles in many respects, while rapping predominately in the French language (Prévos 2001:43). 21

“Intik Interview” (2000) at http://www.ukhh.com/features/interviews/intik.html Many such groups were featured on the first anthology of French rap, released in 1989, that was entitled Rapattitudes (Prévos 2001:43). 22

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Meaningfully, the use of French (and other non-English languages) in rap music represents “a form of contestation” to American hip-hop hegemony (Mitchell 2000). However, the French language utilized by rappers and their fans is frequently laden with youth-based slang expressions emanating from the banlieues. Known as cefron, this suburban vernacular is “a melting pot of expressions that reflect the ethnic make-up of the communities where it is used, borrowing words from regional dialects as well as Arab, Creole, Gypsy, and Berber languages” (Bell 1999). Moreover, French rappers often sprinkle Anglicisms in their songs, reflecting the eclecticism of their influences. Many utilize what is known as verlan – or inversing syllables in various French words; which often refers to covert or deviant activities, including sexual relations and drug use.23 Such subcultural modifications of the French language are comparable to the use of “ebonics” and related hip-hop slang by African-American rappers. Cefron and verlan function together as a collective identity marker, thus delineating a distinct group identity associated with French-African hip-hop. In syncretistic fashion, French rap often combines Americanstyle hip-hop beats with rhythms and melodies sampled from the Algerian folk-pop music of rai and the Afro-Caribbean sounds of reggae and ragamuffin. Collectively, such strategic utilizations of “exotic” musical influences, along with a distinct argot of suburban and foreign phrases, confront the hegemony of French language/music purists and related ethnocentric ideologies. Though French rappers have embraced several of the classic themes of American hip-hop, including black oppression and defiance in inner-city ghettos, they have effectively reframed them to focus on the plight of “immigrants” in the equally oppressive French suburbs. The similarities between predominantly African-American low-income neighborhoods – in which hip-hop first emerged - and the French banlieues, have likely encouraged this trend. Though far from a perfect analogy, such features as rampant poverty, overcrowded housing projects, ethno-racial discrimination, high rates of unemployment, gang-related crime, and police harassment, exist in both urban settings. Consequently, the black-inflected lyrical style of French hip-hop is sometimes described as “ghettocentricity” (Helenon 2996:6), with rappers often spotlighting the difficult challenges of life on “the street” (la rue) and in “the projects” (la téci). Assassin, for instance, gained international recognition after producing the hip-hop soundtrack for the critically acclaimed 1995 French film, La Haine (“Hate”). The film, which portrays a multi-ethnic group of young men from an impoverished Parisian housing project, is thematically reminiscent of such African-American “ghetto” films as Boyz in the Hood and Menace II Society. Depicting a seemingly hopeless, apocalyptic tableau of everyday life in the banlieues, La Haine includes starkly violent confrontations between presumably racist police and defiant minority youth. The soundtrack of the film features Bob Marley’s visionary song, “Burnin’ and Lootin’,” which effectively frames the “insurgent youth” of the banlieues as part of a “wider post-colonial struggle against racist state terror and social injustice” (Sharma and Sharma 2000:104). Alliance Ethnik, one of France’s most famous hip-hop bands, incorporates both blackinflected “ghetto” themes and hybridized North African musical influences into their songs. Comprised of children of immigrants from various ethnic backgrounds, the band released their first album, Simple and Funky, in 1995; which featured the hit single, “Respect.” Tellingly, the song begins with a short instrumental sample of Courtney Pine’s R&B hit, 23

For more information about verlan, see Valdman (2000).

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“Children of the Ghetto.” The lyrics of “Respect,” set to a jazzy funk beat, bemoan the erosion of hip-hop’s “true values” such as authenticity, honor, and self-esteem among many French youth in the banlieues. Endorsing “the old school and its progeny,” the song praises rappers and graffiti taggers who have managed to maintain their integrity and avoid “selling out.” As the lyrics state: The new school needs the presence in France, The break is forgotten, and rap is marketed. The tag disappears, and the graph rises again in the galleries… Oh yes it’s good to be a king and yes it’s good to be a queen Respect yourself, and the rest will flow K-Mel, the charismatic lead rapper of Alliance Ethnik, grew up in the Crell banlieue north of Paris listening to the rai music of his Algerian immigrant parents and the black funk records of his older brother.24 In recent years, K-Mel has joined forces with the highly popular French-Algerian rai artist, Cheb Mami, to sing Parisiens du Nord (“Parisians from the North”). The song expresses the growing discontent of French youth of Maghrebi origin particularly those who live in the northern Parisian banlieues. Accusations of unequal treatment and xenophobic perceptions among “native” French citizens towards minority youth are expressed in the song. As the lyrics state: Because of my looks you called me a foreigner I thought that this was my country That I could die here That’s how you played me That’s how you betrayed me In contrast to the “conscience” hip-hop of Alliance Ethnik and K-Mel, the “hardcore” rap of Suprême NTM often employs sexually explicit and violent lyrics associated with la rue. Originating in the Parisian suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis in 1989, NTM has sparked a great deal of speculation about the meaning behind the band’s mysterious moniker. Many fans of NTM believe that the initials actually are an acronym for Nique Ta Mère (“fuck your mother”), since the band employs identical and similar expletives in their songs and concert appearances. The use of this particular phrase recalls not only the profanity of the street, but also the traditional African-American pastime of “the dozens,” in which insults about one’s “mama” are hurled back and forth. The meaning of NTM’s initials alternatively has been described as Le nord transmet le message (“message transmitted from the north”), referring to “the band’s origins in the lower socio-economic north Parisian banlieues” (Huq 2006:20). One of NTM’s most famous songs, “Police,” expresses strong hostility towards French law enforcement. Focusing primarily on police brutality and the harassment of minority youth in the Parisian banlieues, the lyrics state that the police are a “veritable gang,” “mentally retarded,” and “a brainless machine under justice’s orders and upon which I pee.” Though such iconoclastic lyrics are comparable to those of gangsta rap produced in the U.S., NTM refuses to identify their music with that particular sub-genre. Rather than simply glorify 24

For a short biography of Alliance Ethnik, see http://www.rfimusique.com/siteEn/biographie/biographie_6032.asp

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gratuitous violence, members of NTM see their “mission” as the rejection of “social and economic exploitation” (Prévos 2002:9). Throughout NTM’s career, the band has been directly critical of racism and socioeconomic inequality in France, focusing on specific issues of concern for impoverished and marginalized suburban residents. In light of widespread riots and police crackdowns in the banlieues in recent years, NTM has increasingly counseled non-violence in such songs as Pose ton Gun (“Put down your Gun”), while continuing to advocate “revolutionary” activism. Cannon (1997) has noted that the Francophone hip-hop of NTM and other artists “is characterized to a great extent by its role as a cultural expression of resistance by young people of minority origin to the racism, oppression, and social marginalization they experience within France’s banlieues” (155).

Muslim Diasporic Frames in French Hip-Hop Due to the fact that most North Africans and many West Africans in France are Muslim, a religious-diasporic component has emerged within French hip-hop. For many rappers and their fans, openly embracing a “Muslim-Arab” identity and in turn de-emphasizing or even rejecting a “French” identity, is a collective diasporic response to Franco-conformity, mandatory secularism in public schools, police brutality, and rampant discrimination in the job market. Several rappers in France have referred either directly or indirectly to the transnational Islamic frame of the ummah, while often synthesizing it with various aspects of their own ethno-national status and local concerns. In particular, French-Muslim rappers often cite the legendary Muslim “holy” cities of Mecca and Medina in their songs, thus framing the Muslim Diaspora as linked inextricably to its Middle Eastern origins. The French-Maghrebi rap band Sniper, for instance, proudly identifies as Muslim and often focuses on controversial issues involving anti-Islamic prejudice in France and elsewhere around the world. Framing their collective identity as “global citizens” in the song “A Day of Peace,” Sniper proclaims that they “do not feel at home anywhere.” Various types of racism in French society compound their diasporic sense of alienation from the “host” society. As the band’s lyrics expound, “skin color can make you a stranger” in France. In several songs, Sniper raps approvingly of the Middle East, framing it as the diasporic “homeland” of the Muslim faith. One of the band’s most controversial songs, Jeteur de pierres (“Stone-thrower”), endorses the intifada (“uprising”) of Palestinian youths, who have thrown stones at Israeli troops at different times in recent history. The song directly denounces the Israeli occupation of Palestine, alleging that the U.S. and other Western countries are slavishly pro-Israeli and indifferent to the plight of the Palestinian people. As lyrics in the song allege: The world, lax, lets it happen and defiles itself While you kill civilians and call them terrorists We pretend to be concerned, but at heart we don’t give a damn Looking without being outraged as long as it isn’t happening to us If in your eyes we take a stand, you should understand That we don’t speak as Muslims only as human beings IAM, an all-Muslim rap band, often features a combination of pan-Islamic, pan-Arab, and pan-African imagery in their music. The group makes frequent allusions to ancient Egyptian

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pharaohs and other African/North African ideas and artifacts. “Egypt” has long been a powerful metaphor for the Afrocentric movement worldwide, though the band’s combination of Egyptian symbolism with Arabic/Islamic concepts is a significant variation on this theme. As one of the strongest and most influential Muslim nations in the world, “Egypt” symbolically calls attention to the present-day plight of North African Muslims in particular, rather than simply focusing on the Middle East. IAM’s philosophy, popularly known as “pharaohism” or “Egyptianism,” is a coded reaction to colonialism and the continued (postcolonial) subjugation of Muslims, Arabs, blacks, and other minorities by the West (Prévos 2001:48). Even the group’s name, IAM, reportedly stands for “Imperial Asiatic Men;”25 which has reputed connotations to renowned Asian/African/Arab civilizations of antiquity such as Egypt. Though the band is composed mainly of diasporic Africans, the lead rapper for the group has Italian roots. Philippe Fragione (a.k.a. Akhenaton) is the son of southern Italian immigrants, a Muslim convert, and a firm believer in the symbiotic existence of “a panMediterranean black Islamic culture.” Though strongly Islamic, he claims to be neither a “fundamentalist” nor any kind of political extremist (Péguillan 1995). Fragione explains his conversion to Islam by noting that southern Italians and Arabs have overlapping origins, shared bloodlines, and similar customs. Moreover, both groups are often perceived in France prejudicially as métèques (“resident foreigners”), he notes. Revealing his own black-inflected identity, Fragione states, “I’m one of those whom Hitler called the niggers of Europe” (quoted in Swedenburg 2001:71-72). IAM often engages in various cultural hybridities, purposively subverting and aligning seemingly disparate ethno-diasporic frames. The song, “Do the Rai Thing,” for instance, is an ironic reference to Spike Lee’s film, Do the Right Thing. By inserting the Algerian musical term rai in place of “right,” IAM fuses North African and African-American frames of reference, thus reconfiguring what it means to be “black” in French society. The lyrics include Arab/Algerian terms such as “sultan” and “cheb” (a title used for Algerian rai performers). The lyrics even mention “the Arab public enemy,” which is an obvious reference to the American rap band, Public Enemy; whose song, “Fight the Power,” was featured in Lee’s film. In short, the song reveals a strong desire to assert a defiant multicultural identity that is glocally framed as African, Arab, and Muslim. Similar, though even more militant, diasporic identity assertions are found in other rap songs surveyed. The rebellious tone of such songs appeals to large numbers of Muslim young people, with many having directly experienced poverty and various forms of prejudice in France. For example, the Franco-Maghrebi rapper Yazid angrily asserts his Arab/Musliminspired “mission” to oppose racism in Je suis l’arabe (“I Am the Arab”). As he raps: I’m the Arab, stopping oppression is my mission. The country of secularism doesn’t tolerate Islam. Unemployment ravages, they talk of immigration. And when the banlieue burns, they talk of integration.

25

An alternative meaning of the band’s name is Invasion arrivant de Mars (“Invasion Coming From Mars”); which is an apparent reference to the uniquely “alien” atmosphere of the band’s Mediterranean hometown of Marseilles.

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“Cool Islam” in French Hip-Hop In recent years, “Cool Islam,” a new diasporic phenomenon, has emerged in France, Great Britain, and other countries. This “movement,” as some people are calling it, was designed to promote a more modern, decidedly less fundamentalist, Muslim collective identity (Pigott 2008, Sardar 2006). Framing Islam as “cool” is an apparent attempt to counteract popular stereotypes of Muslim youth as overly traditional, anti-Western, puritanical, menacing, and socially-repressed. In many respects, Cool Islam is directly linked to hip-hop and a black-inflected identity in terms of musical tastes, values, and attitudes. Like the slang term “hip,” the subcultural concept of “cool” reputedly has African Diasporic/African-American origins. Notably, American black jazz musicians and their fans first popularized “cool” during the 1940s; defining it as a “laid back” style. In France and other countries, “cool” Muslim fashions have emerged recently that incorporate syncretistic hip-hop/Islamic slogans on colorful t-shirts, jackets, and baseball caps, which are often written in Arabic script. Examples include “Islam 4 Real,” “Property of Allah,” and “1 Ummah.” Hip-hop, which connotes enlightenment (hip) with fun (hop), seems to be tailor-made for the new Cool Islam. According to Sardar (2006): “Cool Islam” expresses its identity through hip-hop and rap, and is heavily influenced by an underground Muslim hip-hop movement in the U.S…Cool Islam uses hip-hop to convey a political and religious message: all Muslims are united; Islam is a pragmatic and rational faith; Muslims are not helpless victims, but have creative ways to resist and subvert imperialism. Amel Boubekeur, of the School of Social Studies in Paris, explains that Cool Islam is not only spiritual and committed to core Muslim principles, but also somewhat materialistic and Western in its social outlook. In contrast to past generations, the vast majority of younger Muslims recognize that they will remain in France for the rest of their lives, despite frustrating experiences with social exclusion, she observes. Though they retain an acute fascination with their diasporic homeland, most do not yearn to return – at least not permanently. Thus, Muslim youth have sought to reconcile and synthesize the values of Islam with those of their adopted nation. As Boubekeur states, “They are trying to promote an Islamic identity, but also an ethic of solidarity, charity, responsibility for each other” (quoted in Pigott 2008). One example of a French-Algerian performer who self-identifies with Cool Islam is the rapper, Médine (Mehdi Zaouiche). Growing up in the banlieues of coastal Le Havre, he was at one time highly intolerant of Western values. But in recent years, he claims to have undergone a “cool Islamic” transformation, thus becoming decidedly less dogmatic and more ecumenical. “I think that in all religions today, there are common human values,” he states (quoted in Pigott 2008). Still devoutly religious and proud of his ethno-religious origins, Médine emphasizes non-violent activism and the importance of undergoing an internal spiritual transformation; thus, the name of his best-selling album, Jihad: The Greatest Struggle Is Within Yourself. On such albums, his songs are often pleading in tone but rarely angry, focusing on problems of racism, poverty, and xenophobia in French society and around the world. He raps that people who live in the banlieues are often “deprived of civil rights.” As Médine (2005) wrote when he was 22-years old in a Time Magazine essay:

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People like me--the descendants of immigrants, whether Arab, black or Asian--are turning to our roots and embracing our heritage, just the opposite of what our parents did when they arrived...(But) we’re standing up to denounce the prejudice and injustice we face. In my case, Islam is an enormous part of who I am, just as being French is. The two aren’t in opposition or even mutually exclusive. Yet when you hear the debate in France today, you’d swear they must be. Often addressing global issues such as the 9-11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the subsequent internment of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Médine calls for social justice and world peace. In his songs, he often bemoans the centuries-old cycle of violence that has existed between Muslims and non-Muslims in various global settings. “War before another and one death after another empire, a continent and a race against another,” he raps in “Jihad,” thus criticizing the jingoistic status quo. Invoking diasporic imagery in the song “Medina,” he frames the Muslim ummah as a global mixture of various peoples that has existed for centuries. Medina, the ancient Arabian city of Mohammad, is framed as a modern source of enlightenment and unity for Muslims worldwide. As the lyrics state: Here in Medina will rest my mind, immigration includes a lifetime And takes my mind time to music, my vision of monument mosaic Of the Ottoman Empire and the kingdoms of Asia Andalusia through the buildings in Malaysia… We learn the importance of things but too late As long as there is life there is hope You be white, or African Magrébin black. Listen to my story!

Conclusion With its origins in the marginalized inner-city neighborhoods of the South Bronx, hip-hop has elaborated on universal themes of racism, poverty, oppression, authenticity, and rage in a variety of glocal settings; including the highly disadvantaged outer suburbs of Paris, Marseilles, and other French cities. Recontextualized to better reflect the demographic and sociopolitical conditions of France, hip-hop has been appropriated by diasporic teens and young adults living in a state of social exclusion and cultural flux. In the process of producing and consuming hybridized forms of music, Francophone hip-hop artists and their fans have established highly innovative, inter-ethnic networks, reflecting the multicultural character of their existence. Moving beyond the bipolar model of global versus local, the collective identities of French diasporic youth reflect what Bhabha (1994:1-2) has termed the “third space,” in which cultural identities are located, contested, and elaborated. Rather than blindly cloning the African-American model, French “immigrant” rappers have synthesized selected frames of global hip-hop with their own musical traditions, idioms, issues, and symbols. Though France’s hip-hop subculture has managed to retain much of the original “blackness” of the American archetype, diasporic rappers have effectively transformed it to express their own lived realities. Indeed, this paper has clearly demonstrated that much of the allure of French hip-hop is based on its intimate association with Afrocentric

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imagery, pride, and defiance in the face of adversity; and the related diasporic fascination with a real or imagined homeland. North Africans and other minorities in France, physically detached from their native lands, appear to identify with this theme; as evidenced in several rap songs and interviews analyzed in this paper. To many North and West African youths experiencing prejudice or discrimination in France, “Africa” becomes a metaphorical means for discovering one’s own roots and charting a new collective destiny. Moreover, this new counter-hegemonic discourse includes diasporic frames depicting the relatively recent post-colonial wave of African immigration to Western Europe, which has brought a reinvigorated relevancy to hip-hop. Most notably, the classic African Diasporic portrayal of the Black Atlantic has been recontextualized and expanded to include the new diasporic frame of the Black Mediterranean; reflecting the more immediate recollections and collective memories of African Diasporic minorities in France. The image of the slaveship forcibly transporting blacks to the Americas has been supplemented by the more contemporary representation of post-colonial black and Arab migrants fleeing turmoil in their homelands and seeking better prospects in France and other West European “host” nations. Both of these cultural diasporic narratives intersect in French rap, with each framed as massive dispersals of Africans from their ancestral homelands, albeit under starkly different circumstances. In both cases, the “host” nation is framed as inhospitable, oppressive, and exclusionary towards new migrants, though the environment of the host nonetheless tends to facilitate collective identity transformations of the migrant peoples involved. Consequently, French rap music conveys the hybridized discourse of double consciousness that often exists among diasporic peoples, including Algerians, Moroccans, Senegalese, and others. Similarly, the often-sympathetic portrayal of the impoverished, besieged inner-city ghetto in American hip-hop has been reframed as the banlieue in French rap. Due in large measure to widespread prejudice, economic marginalization, and stigmatization in the banlieues, there is a profound transnational affinity among French minority youth with African-Americans. This affinity was initially communicated via the popularity of African-American rap in France, but was soon given a new meaning by French-African rap. In this regard, appropriating and redefining African-American hip-hop frames by rap musicians in France appears to be relatively authentic, particularly given the similarly-oppressed status of the diasporic artists and fans involved. Muslim-Arab youth, more than any other group in France, appear to have embraced hiphop largely as a means for asserting a positive transnational identity, linked to the relatively new frame of the Muslim Diaspora. Thus, Muslim hip-hoppers in France have incorporated African/Arab/Mediterranean/Middle Eastern symbols into a broadly redefined Afrocentric philosophy, which is designed to bolster and expand upon the emerging global ummah. This identity is reactive in some respects, being a collective response to racism, Islamophobia, job discrimination, overcrowded housing, police harassment, and related social problems found in France. Paradoxically, the Cool Islam movement, as expressed in hip-hop and related fashion trends, frames Muslim youth as “hip” and Western-oriented; thus effectively countering negative stereotypes of Muslims as inherently fundamentalist, dangerous, and puritanical. Negotiating their own collective identities, diasporic youth frequently find themselves in the French twilight zone of ethno-racial ambiguity. Often depicted by the white French majority as “immigrants” living in “dangerous” banlieues, such young people are seeking an authentic sense of national entitlement and cultural belonging. Hip-hop, with its multivariate 139

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connotations, brings them this affirmation, albeit in subcultural form. Assuming a black-inflected multicultural identity via hip-hop is one sure way to assert a more dynamic persona, challenge authority, informally register dissent, and implicitly defy stereotypes. In this sense, complex hybrid identities are being constructed in the context of subcultural values and diasporic discourses that are simultaneously both alien and indigenous to the minority groups involved.

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About the Author Prof. David Drissel David Drissel is a professor of social sciences at Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge, Iowa. His undergraduate work included a double major in political science and sociology. His graduate studies focused on comparative politics, international relations, social change and development, and social movements. Research interests include transnational social movements and computer-mediated communication, nations/states undergoing political/economic transition, youth subcultures and collective identities, the global politics of Internet governance, juvenile delinquency and subterranean values, diasporic youth and social networking, and the role of interactive media and popular culture in mobilizing social networks. Professor Drissel is a two-time Fulbright Scholar who has studied extensively in China and the Czech/Slovak Republics, among many other countries. A frequent speaker and conference participant, he has had several papers published in various academic journals and compilations. He is an alumnus of the Oxford (University) Roundtable in Great Britain, where he presented a paper on Internet governance, which was later published in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs.

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EDITORS Jan Nederveen Pieterse, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. Bill Cope, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA.

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Jin-Ho Jang, Institute for Social Development and Policy Research, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea Habibul Haque Khondker, Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Iain Donald MacPherson, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada, Bhikhu Parekh, University of Hull, UK; Member, House of Lords, UK. Thomas Pogge, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA. Timothy Shaw, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad. Manfred B. Steger, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia Gustavo Lins Ribeiro, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília Fazal Rizvi, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA

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