Customer Reviews

Black, Blanc, Beur: Rap Music and Hip-Hop Culture in the Francophone World

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This book reminded me of the book "Money, Morals, and Manners" by Michele Lamont. In that text, she interviewed rich, white men in the US and France. You would think that they had similar views, but they didn't. For example, she said Jeopardy! winners would be deemed smart in the US, but the French would consider that knowledge trivial. On the other hand, people across classes read philosophy publications in France while those texts gain dust in US colleges' libraries. This book has many Francophones being very wordy and philosophical about rap and its counterparts.
The book even slaps ppl like myself. One author, possibly the main editor, said "Ppl think they know French rap just 'cuz they saw "Hate" and have heard of MC Solaar." Oops! There's more than that and we in the US should know about it?!?
I assumed the term "Black, Blanc, Beur" was a way to say "equal opportunity employer" or "all are welcome." I knew it celebrates France's triraciality and multiculturalism. However, I never knew it played on "bleu, blanc, rouge," the colors of France's flag. I wonder if one could make a shirt with a black stripe, a white stripe, and a brown one and make a ton of loot over there. But really, I thought this book said little about beurs and spoke mostly about Blacks, as one might assumed based on how we brothas rule rap in the US.
Without a doubt, your average hip-hop head would not understand this book. It's a bunch of high-level yak-yak. It does touch about gray areas. The disenfranchised try to stand out bragadociously through this field. The Francophone poor praise the hood, but use rap to have the resources of the rich. The same folk whos parents struggled to leave France now talk mess about it (not that I don't relate to that). This book examines mixed emotions well.
You know that phrase "I hope my eyes won't be bigger than my stomach."? That applied here. This book on French rap sounded like it would be better than it actually was.