Seeing around fifty rappers mobilize to help the strikers against the pension reform is quite exceptional. It had been a very long time since French rappers had mobilized for a cause other than police violence. If their political and social commitment was commonplace in the 1990s, through songs like 11’30 against racist laws in 1997, or through their presence in the demonstrations against the National Front in 2002, the new generation rarely got involved in social movements. With the exception of Nekfeu during the Nuit Debout rallies in 2016 against the labor law or in support of the “yellow vests” in 2019. It is therefore a rather special concert that the one given, Sunday April 9, at Dock B in Pantin (Seine- Saint-Denis), with headliners like Medina, Hatik, Sniper, and even Souffrance.
However, it only took the show manager Guéno Fiasko one week to set up this support initiative. This intermittent worker, who mainly works in urban music, is used to supplying sound trucks to the various demonstrations of trade union organizations. He had the idea for this concert at the end of the demonstration on Tuesday, March 28: “I was looking for something to help the strikers and breathe new life into the demonstrations, he explains. As soon as I posted my idea on social networks, I received more than one hundred and fifty proposals from rap artists. For this Sunday, I only took rappers from the Paris region and I offered to help others to (arrange) concerts in their area. »
A denial of democracy
TV series star Valid on Canal+, Hatik was one of the first to respond: “In my Twitter feed, it was Brav, the historical acolyte of Medina, who relayed Guéno Fiasko’s idea. He offered a ticket office, 50% for artists, 50% for strikers. I retweeted saying that I could be counted on, but that I didn’t want a euro in order to give everything to the strikers. It’s my way of participating, because I don’t always have the opportunity to go to a demonstration. »
Originally from Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis), the rapper Souffrance has already participated in two demonstrations against pension reform, but what motivated him is what seems to him to be a denial of democracy: “The pension reformhe says, it doesn’t affect me personally. I took to the streets because this law passed while the polls show that a majority is against it. People become depoliticized and, if there is a possibility of reinteresting them in the public debate, of participating as a citizen, I go there. It’s the perverse effect of 49.3, it’s that a lot of people say to themselves: “It’s dead, we can’t do anything.” »
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