French hip hop

Anything new this year worth checking out?

Not sure about this year, but for the past, Luceien, Luceien, Luceien, Luceien, you should know...

http://www.discogs.com/artist/Lucien

Moved to NYC in the late eighties where he became a cult figure of the hip hop movement, A Tribe Called Quest paying tribute to his hardship with the track Luck of Lucien.
Moves back to France in 1995 where he works on the hip hop soundtrack of hit tv series Les Lascars.
In 2001, in a confused argument with his manager he sets his manager's threshold on fire, the blaze eventually killing two inhabitants of the building.
Although police investigations fail to track any suspect down, he turns himself in.
He is sentenced to 8 years in late September 2006.

He produced this track for Suprême NTM (who you may also want to check out):

(Lucien also produced The Beatnuts' Ya Don't Stop)

2008 has been all about comedy rap in France

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1106/1431271523_11eb419e08.jpg

Adek Dark's is good. You can download his newish EP at the link. I have an mp3 of an incredible older song of his if anyone's interested. Different sound than the new stuff, more like an outtake from the Blueprint, only, y'know, in French.

i for one am v interested!

here ya go.

thanks!

From Crammed records:

"BLACK" is a neo-Blaxploitation film set in Dakar (Senegal), directed by Pierre Laffargue and starring famous, provocative French rapper MC Jean Gab'1. The film was warmly welcomed on its world premiere at SXSW ("From a modern update of Shaft in Africa to a lunatic, witchy, bastard offspring of Cat People and Ssssss. Gloriously lunatic" - Cinematical.com).

The exciting original theme song - a driving Afrobeat track written & recorded by Tony Allen and featuring the inimitable vocal stylings of MC Jean Gab'1 - will be coming out in July as a digital single and promo CD, to coincide with the theatrical release of the film in France. As for the soundtrack album, it will also feature a wealth of gems from the '70s as well as great contemporary tracks (complete track list to be announced soon).

The film will be shown this Summer at various film festivals in the UK (including London's Film 4 Frightfest on Aug 28 & 30), Canada and the Czech Republic.

I need to hear this!

MC Jean Gab'1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tVmHy7cmCg

Tracer what'd you think of the tracks?

i haven't had time to listen to them yet :(

the last ttc album is good (the old stuff of theirs sounds a bit less interesting) but theyre apparently regarded as a bit too jokey by some french hip hop fans.

yeah, as I've said elsewhere, when you understand their lyrics, the whole thing becomes unbearable.

Reclusive French rap duo PNL shun record deal, shoot to top of iTunes chart

Dunno if their music's particularly special, but the whole mysterious-identity thing is pretty interesting. And the Guardian reader comments of "this is not music" made me decide I should like it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9y6iCRyRSE

^ They claim to avoid self-publicity, but advertising your album in the middle of a police raid? Hmm that's bogus

:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7IprB0Fwh4

haha wtf is this

kinda like it

Haha, I know him as one of my very favorite DJs (and he ran the fantastic label Sound Pellegrino), but apparently also was part of a rap group called TTC in the '00s, and this is his first time rapping in a decade.

aah I remember TTC, was very into their Modeselektor collabs back when

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ3L8nrdGO8