France, Alternative Libertaire AL (September) - Interview
rapper VII: "The good rap is endangered" (fr, it, pt) [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
He started rapping there twenty years but few people still know. The rapper VII created
his universe but also develops a social and political dimension. Meet this unusual
character who released her eighth album on October 1st. ---- Can you explain us your
background? How did you come to that style permanently "apart" in the French rap? ---- I
started rapping in 1995 in Bayonne. With a friend we set up our group, we recorded with
the means at hand. In 2002, we left the Basque country to devote ourselves to music and we
landed in Bordeaux. In 2005, we set up our independent label with artists from the corner
then I released my first solo album in 2007 ... I am now about to leave the eighth. I also
worked on a lot of parallel projects. Since the beginning I've always wanted this
different style, more imaginative and far from the middle of the rap stereotypes. I always
liked outside the box.
You make regular tribute to musicians / singers in metal music. This is unusual,
especially since these scenes are not the least sectarian ...
When I pay tribute to Cliff Burton or Chuck Shuldiner is primarily a way for me to say
thank you. They say that thanks to them I have lived strong moments and have completely
changed my musical conceptions. The metal scene is not as sectarian as people think, I
everyday metal fans who come to me and thanked me for having them discover a different
rap. I think they see me as an open-minded guy who stepped up to them and they find
themselves in my music they love in the metal. I have a deep respect for the music and its
history!
"The gurus of paper for young people without references, in revolutionary conspiracy. "You
found the slip of a certain part of the French rap like neighborhoods to these theses ...
You explain it how?
The "conspiracy theories", everyone is put to it, not just the French rap and popular
areas, you also found these theses in relatively affluent and long American rap community
is also affected by this phenomenon. Internet has fostered the emergence of complotistes
by spreading all kinds of more or less farfetched theories. The extreme right has on the
Internet a much more developed information power than ours. Although there are some sites
that do real work in coordination with the fight on the ground, they are still few and too
little impact. There is of course also a human aspect to consider: watch a 20 minute video
on his couch is less painful than banging the Capital of Marx. Many do not adhere to this
kind of theory to "eat of the Jewish". Personally, I was educated in an environment where
the cop, the boss, the bourgeois, fascist is a class enemy. So I had the keys to not fall
in this kind of ideological trap, but we do not all have the same baggage to understand
the complexity of capitalism and imperialism. It is for us to popularize our knowledge,
through music for example. And it's not because some people see conspiracies everywhere
that we should see anywhere. Historically, plots exist and are even frequent political
maneuvering.
On your latest album, "Cult," you think you are in the religions, at least in its
fundamentalists. The song is called "Monotheist" ... Are you so critical of polytheism,
paganism?
Say polytheism and paganism do not have the impact that the monotheistic religions today.
But I do not consider religions as necessarily dangerous, I have an opinion that is more
complex than that on the subject. Some believers have a more subtle interpretation of the
world and intelligent than we think, the theology of liberation is a good example. And
believers, Muslims and Jews for example suffer daily discrimination. So for us to fight
against them, whether sexual, social, racial or religious.
In "The Time of winter," you speak of Roma: "Harassed by the cold, they do not take gloves
/ When the French police come to shave our camps". Need to talk while this is the general
indifference about?
I think we have long since passed the stage of indifference, we are in racism in the
outright hatred of the poor. An irrational fear. But it is mostly assumed that racism
against them that made me want to write this piece. This is currently the same hatred that
flows to migrants ... France does not welcome all the misery of the world, against it
operates, and when she can not, she represses. Your album "Praise shadow "comes on 1
October. In the clip "Equinox Flower" you refer to rappers who "sing all with vocoders".
Rap bothers you so much?
I think that in recent years have hit bottom. It's like that since the 2000s, even a
little before. Rap changes shape every six months, now it is the "trap", tomorrow it will
be something else. I think the mistake that have committed rappers with classic style was
to define their rap by calling it the "boom bap" when it is neither more nor less than the
rap that does not follow any patterns simply. Fortunately in the underground sound always
you find interesting and people who have the background and the shape ... But the good rap
is effectively extinct for a long time.
It seems you express yourself more and more about the social and political field. This is
something that you plan to continue in the future? What motivates you to give,
increasingly, your perspective on this?
Praise of the shade, my upcoming album, is clearly the most political of all. After do the
following will follow the same path? Probably because I feel the need. Recently, a
multitude of events led me to reinvest myself politically, something I had put on hold for
several years contenting myself out some political songs and write a few articles in a
fanzine. I knew that following attacks against Charlie Hebdo, we would be entitled to an
arsenal of draconian laws ... we are now in the United States after September 11. That
anti-Muslim racism would take a colossal scale was also predictable. In this context, hard
to stay in his corner with his arms crossed.
After, of course, each has its own commitments, in connection with what he saw. The
concerns of a libertarian communist in Iparralde (Northern Basque Country) are not
necessarily the same as a comrade outside Paris ... and yet, at some point you have to
create this cohesion even if it is complicated. It often runs in the Basque Country,
misunderstanding (see disinterest or hostility) French and Spanish activists. But we must
understand that here the armed conflict that has continued for four years ... The fate of
Basque prisoners held 800 km from home, those we tortures and murders affects me
personally. This does not prevent me from being in solidarity with all peoples struggling
for self-determination worldwide. It is the addition of local struggles that shaped the
international fight.
Interview by Nicolas (AL Moselle)
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Interview-du-rappeur-VII-Le-bon
