Interview
IAM, the samurai of French rap
I AM. © Didier Darwin
11/29/2019
On their new album Yasuke , over sixteen well-timed tracks, members of IAM, pioneers of French rap show that they still have under the hood. On soundtracks full of energy, sometimes flirting on the side of Africa, with features of Kalash, Psy4 of Rime or Femi Kuti, they balance their rhymes, always with the accent: observations of our time, social criticism, with hope. Meeting with Akhenaton and Imhotep.
RFI Music: Why this title, Yasuke ?
Akhenaton: Yasuke is a black slave of the sixteenth century, party chained to the bottom of the hold of a boat to Japan, a land where he became a samurai. For us, this hero embodies a total upheaval of destiny and the advent of situations deemed impossible. So of course, this historical figure can refer to the history of IAM, and to the metamorphosis of our lives to everyone, for thirty years. With this title, I also thought about this drama of the news: this 14-year-old migrant from Mali, found drowned in the Mediterranean, with his report card sewn into his jacket. If he had managed to reach the shores of France, England or Italy, who knows if he would not have become a modern "Yasuke"? In our world, we must drive out fear, open our minds and try to understand those people who abandon their country that has become unlivable.
What color did you want to give to this record?
Akhenaton: We do not plan anything. We always write more than necessary. This album contains 16 tracks, while we composed about thirty songs. For only guideline, we wanted an album that can be defended on stage, which pulses more than Révolution , our precedent: more energy, more battles and ego-trip!
You have 16 titles - at the beginning more than thirty - all very rich ... Is there always this urgency to write?
Imhotep: If we look at the news of the world, the subjects do not miss to nourish our inspirations. We are not lesson givers; we only propose our points of view. And in the end, the more the observation is pessimistic, the more we feel the need to develop optimism, empathy and willingness to help improve situations at our modest level.
Akhenaton: In fact, I do not think the world is worse than before. But the way people perceive it, it deteriorates. Today, via social networks, bad news is spreading like wildfire. The smallest news item, previously relegated to the last pages of a regional newspaper, is now exploding as a national buzz . All this favors the divisions of French society ...
Imhotep: For here are the questions we raise in our raps: how to live together in our society, in France? Thus, our album cover, a nod to the Raft of the jellyfish , represents a whole panel of people, assembled on a skiff. These passengers, without devouring each other, have been sailing from raging waves to a calm sea. We are still harboring this hope for a better tomorrow.
Has your mission evolved since you started thirty years ago?
Akhenaton: Our mission has not moved. Composing good music and defending our ideas with rap. And in the end, our positions have changed little. We follow globally the universal values of hip hop. A message of peace is broadly circulated. From our beginnings in 1989 to the present, we have never seen violence solve the slightest problem. We struggle with construction and our cultural weapons. To demolish is easy: a straight line. We are trying to take positive paths. So, obviously, it's longer and winding.
Imhotep: Our commitments, our positions are written above all in our texts. And then, of course, as citizens and human beings, we support certain associations such as Emmaus, SOS Mediterranean or Terre des Hommes: battles that are important to us.
How do you think the situation has changed in the suburbs and neighborhoods?
Akhenaton: Unfortunately, the situations have stagnated. One could even speak of regression, with the cutting of the budgets allocated to the social centers. As a result, we observe a multitude of people who retreat socially, who cut themselves off from society. I am not in favor of the state being a social worker, but I am in favor of increasing the cultural investment. Above all, we must stop despising or underestimating the revolts in the neighborhoods. There is also racism in this country. It makes me angry, when I see Le Figaro use "Islamophobia" with quotation marks, as if the phenomenon did not exist. That someone, on the social networks, behind the anonymity of his nickname, loose punchlines , shortcuts, to provoke reactions, I can hear it. That journalists, supposed to handle the information and the critical eye, use the same methods to make the buzz, it makes me crazy. Moreover, men and women politicians use the same strings.
In your title Who is?, You denounce the Manichaeism, the lack of nuances ... Does rap allow to explore these gray areas?
Akhenaton: Yes ! Today, we refuse to do case by case. The society thinks that it can treat people in mass, in ethnic groups, religious, age, social classes. While it's always more complicated. If we do not pay in the nuance, all these antagonisms, all these oppositions can turn into civil war. There is in this country a terrible tension.
What is your current look on your city, Marseille?
Akhenaton : It is stretched. It is a complex city, with a functioning inherited from the post-war period and a town hall that functions like a small duchy. And as long as there are no candidates for the municipality able to reunify the North and South of the city, to assemble by transport or culture two types of people living in isolation, there will always be endemic violence in this fragmented city. But beyond the status of rappers, we are citizens like others, who love our city. When the dramas of the rue d'Aubagne took place, I raised my voice as a man. These streets have hosted my family. Young, I spent my time rapping in these places. And there were already walls slit up and down ...
Imhotep: We put Marseille on the map of hip hop in the world. Our role is not to be elected politicians or municipal councilors. We do our part ...
As pioneers of French rap, you have many heirs ... Is not this a heavy responsibility to bear?
Akhenaton: In fact, the only heirs we have are our children. Today, our only concern is to create pieces that live up to our commitments and our artistic requirements. Nevertheless, we are proud to have opened the way to a style that is today ultra-popular in France, with infinite ramifications ...
Your title When are we going to love each other , is an incitement to love ... Is love a lasting solution for you?
Akhenaton : For us, it's even the basic principle of hip hop. And yet, we still have anger intact. But rage can be at the service of love. We can have rabies and want to build ...
Values that you pass on to your children?
Akhenaton: Yes, that's what we basically try to leave them as a legacy. And at the end of the record, the little kid who raps is my son. He is very modest on the subject. He has been hip hop for many years, I was hardly aware ... It must be believed that rap and its values are transmitted as good viruses.
IAM Yasuke 2019 Def Jam Recordings / Universal Music
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By: Anne Laure Lemancel
I AM
Rap - France - album
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