Abd al Malik directed "Cities", a series created with Amazon Prime and broadcast since the end of February on TikTok.
The rapper, writer and director tells Monday in "Culture Media" why he accepted this project, whose constraints are very specific to this mobile application for creating and sharing videos.
INTERVIEW
After directing on the big screen in 2014 with
May Allah bless France
, Abd al Malik embarked on directing for the (very) small screen, that of our smartphones.
The rapper, writer and director signs
Cités
, a series in 12 episodes.
Abd al Malik unveils on Monday in
Culture Médias
the behind the scenes of this fiction created with Amazon Prime, broadcast since the end of February on the TikTok application.
With "Cities", Abd al Malik explores a subject close to his heart: the encounter between the youth of the neighborhoods and classical culture.
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"It's like an imposed figure"
In this series, he tells the story of "two young people who come together and understand that culture is not only around them, but that it is in them".
In other words, "there is no gap between the French cultural heritage and the French youth of today."
A theme that resonates with the personal journey of Abd al Malik.
It is above all because of its format that
Cités
is unique.
Commissioned by the Amazon Prime streaming platform, it is not broadcast on the latter but on the TikTok mobile application.
"I find that great, because it's like a kind of imposed figure", rejoices the director.
"My idea was to find out how I was going to be able to tell a story as I like to tell them, with the themes that are important to me, in that format."
TikTok "Codes" and "Grammar"
A necessarily vertical video format that should not exceed one minute.
But not only.
"Telling a story on TikTok means doing it with TikTok codes for the TikTok community by casting the different actors on TikTok, and using TikTok grammar", lists the director, who imposed himself on this demanding notebook charges.
To write the 12 episodes of
Cités,
Abd al Malik therefore immersed himself in the universe of this application, in order to appropriate its codes and to identify the young talents who use it.
A feat for the rapper: he had never opened TikTok until then.