Diam’s, The French Lady Of Rap
This weekend I downloaded from the iTunes platform the album SOS from the french female rap singer « Diam’s ». I’ve heard a lot about it. Including during the « Grand Journal » broadcasted in Canal + channel. TV journalists were only interested in her veil and her conversion to Islam. From their valley in Bourgeois-bohème land, they took her new faith as an attack. They bang their heads on the facts instead of listening to the album. So I was curious, I bought all the tracks. After listening to the first single “Children of the desert,” I confess that I was a little moved. I felt she was telling my story. I recently spoke about climbing the social ladder and personal sacrifice… Well Diam’s put it into a song. When she sings : “I want my money to got to the children of the desert, cause I won’t carry any of it, when I ‘ll be six feet under.” She says it all. Money is the faithless friend of the man without any reason to live.
This album is neither aggressive nor disenchanted, it is realistic but also full of hope. When Diam’s tells her story. She talks about her jihad. And when I say jihad I MEAN inner battle, because that’s what jihad means too. She has fought against herself. Against her dark side, which in this war against herself, seems to have lost the first battle. Because basically what Melanie (Diam’s) wants is simply being a good person in a world where everyone only dream of power and money. Melanie, just wants to be loved. Sincerely loved in return after having been deprived of the love of a father. And her emotional deprivation, she put into words sometimes childish and naive. Cause Diam’s is sometimes childish and sometimes a strong woman. And I laugh with her when she mock Francis Cabrel (a singer who’s part of French heritage), or when she screams out loud and clear “Make the kinder chocolate explode !”. She’s like a 10 year old child who watches her first TV News full of horror, who discovers how ugly the world is and wants to hide far away from violence.
The album is not naive, but still, it is not poetic. Her voice is more agressive than ever, she’s rough, she raps like she had no time. No time to wait, no time to let go. Melanie has a lot to say. You can feel her frustrated to see her beloved France moralizing the world but ready to send fasciste Le Pen in the second round of the presidential elections. She’s hurt by that. You can feel it. Because she loves France. Yes, she loves her country, she says, “more than Nicolas does”. She shows her love in the song “the honor of a nation”, my favorite track. She says: “The biggest stars in (France) are not Diam’s and Jamel, but l’Abbé Pierre and Sister Emmanuelle (equality and social activists), they shall rest in peace, instead of puppets and clowns, whose sole remembrance are they’re ass splashed on the front page of the tabloids “…
Yes, Melanie loves France. The real one, not the one on postcards or the one Nicolas Sarkozy wants to sell to fascist supporters, who I must admit, definitely NOT disappeared in a “mbop” after 2002. Then Melanie. I answer your question. Is that France serious ? Yes, unfortunately …
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