• From this Wednesday, Arte is uploading a new documentary series by Jean-François Tatin and Flora Desprats on Arte.tv and YouTube.

  • “Girlhood” highlights eight female rappers in different countries, in France, Germany, South Africa and Morocco.

  • "I wanted to go and meet girls for whom rap is a means of expression, of affirming their identities and their cultures", explains the director to "20 Minutes".

In Khayelitsha, one of the largest townships in Cape Town in South Africa, the young Dee Koala slips into her texts her struggles for the emancipation of women and denounces the violence they suffer. Thousands of kilometers away in Rabat, rapper Khtek assumes a “hardcore, raw, honest and dark” rap, fights against discrimination and tries to find her place in a still very masculine environment. Both are at the heart of

Girlhood

, a documentary mini-series by Jean-François Tatin and Flora Desprats.

Available since Wednesday on Arte.tv and on YouTube, the four twelve-minute episodes highlight eight young rappers from France, Germany, South Africa and Morocco.

Whether they express themselves in French, English, Creole, Arabic or even in Isixhosa, a South African language, all have rap, which they each handle in their own way.

"A means of affirming their identities and their cultures"

"I wanted to meet girls for whom rap is a means of expression, of affirming their identities and their cultures," explains director Jean-François Tatin, previously author of the documentary

French game

on the history of French rap. The idea is less to retrace the journey of these rappers than to understand how music echoes their daily life and their place in society. In the Berlin episode, Layla Boe and Yetunde try to impose their radically different styles in this teeming megalopolis. "How can I break through here when everyone is so incredibly talented and creative?" », Asks Yetunde. Both of mixed race, the young women explore their multiple origins and have fun combining languages ​​to create a unique flow.

In France, Meryl and Lean Chihiro are in the spotlight.

On the one hand, a rapper from Martinique with texts rooted in everyday life and Caribbean musical influences.

On the other hand, a Parisian artist who moves between the Marais and the Porte de Saint-Ouen and travels in a digital universe imbued with Japanese culture.

Apart from a short introductory voice-over at the beginning of each episode, only the rappers tell their stories through their testimonies, their music and their images.

With always at the heart of the matter, their places of life and "how through their journey they tell their territory", specifies the director.

"A tool for emancipation and demand"

In the hollow is also the question of the place of these women in the world of rap, without plunging into the cliché of "female rap" which, as Meryl repeats in her episode, "does not exist and does not mean anything. ". On the contrary, over the course of the series, different musicalities, visions of the music and positions emerge. For Khtek and Krtas Nssa, rapping is resolutely a political and committed act. Whether in the underground world of Rabat for the first or in Brussels for the second, rap is part of a process of freedom of expression and equality between men and women. “Leaving Morocco was not a choice because I didn't have it, that's the problem. I found myself in a country that does not accept a rebellious woman who can say no and who has character. For us, a woman who does rap is shame ”,deplores Krtas Nssa.

"What struck me with the girls in rap is how rap, which was more of a guy's thing, rather misogynistic, had become a tool of emancipation and claim for women in different countries", estimates Jean-François Tatin.

Girlhood

also allows you to open the horizons of rap and discover talented artists from all over the world, music and voices that really deserve to be heard.

Television

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Culture

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  • Documentary

  • Rap

  • Women

  • Culture

  • Arte

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