It’s called suffering and it doesn’t sell dreams. The Montreuil-born rapper from Seine-Saint-Denis, who will give a concert on Saturday December 16th in Marseille and on Wednesday February 7th 2024 at La Cigale in Paris, takes French rap against the grain . When his colleagues on streaming platforms sing more than rap and are content to fantasize about drug trafficking in their lyrics, he returns to the basics of a realistic, almost naturalistic rap, with a precise and technical one. In his new album Spring waterreleased in mid-November, the former accountant brings contemporary melancholic music that describes, without exaggeration, the everyday life of the residents of the suburbs and their transport “stink”, “The Crackman Who Taxes Money”he says metro. He also chose his stage name to represent that “Lower France”.
Sitting in a cafe on the 10the Paris district Souffrance, 37 years old, whose real name is Sofiane Meridja, recognizes that his music is close to that of the artists of the 1990s, from IAM to NTM, from Rocé to La Rumeur, from the Fonky family to Mafia K ‘1 Roast. “I’m part of a rap whose codes we know, he said, But I also bring originality through my investments [de voix], my topics, my identity. » For him, rap is primarily a blues, “Atonement music that does good to the people who need it”.
Rocked by the album Illmatic (1994), by American Nas, he turned rap into his antidepressant, which allowed him to persevere when his life was turned upside down at 17. Three months before he comes of age, he becomes an orphan and finds himself alone in the apartment of his recently deceased father. Her mother died a few years earlier. Sofiane is too old for the children to care for him and too young to continue his studies without the support of a family. He is in the 1stre Technology at a high school in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis). There are only boys in his class: “We were all 1.90 meters tall. The teacher said to us: “Last year my class got good grades in their Abitur”, then he looked at us: “This year that won’t be possible.” »
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Young Sofiane drops out of college, suffers from depression for a long time, and then pulls himself together thanks to his girlfriend and his persistent desire to leave the city. He knew otherwise. Until he was five years old, he lived in Indonesia, where his father was an employee of a French import-export company. He went to school with other expat children. As soon as he raises his head, the young man starts businesses and sells everything, even soap. He continues rapping with his friends from the L’uZine collective, becoming more experienced on stage, but avoiding the world of music : “I hated the light, he explains. I am a very humble person who has had difficulty standing out. »
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