Africa Is a Country

Shoutout Banlieue

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Shoutout Banlieue

By
Hinda Talhaoui

Number 8 in our series, Paris Is a Continent, showcasing the music of the French capital, is about bragging rights and one song.

A screenshot from the music video from Claise's "Vive le Banlieue."

Loads of Paris suburbs or departements get shouted out in this song by a cast of the city’s rappers: 75 (Paris), 77 (Seine Et Marne), 78 (Les Yveline), 91 (Essonne; my suburb), 92 (Hauts de Seine), 93 (Seine Saint Denis), 94 (Val de Marne) and 95 (Val d’Oise). This a break from the usual enmity between suburbs (often manufactured to aid record sales), like the long-standing “beef” between Rohff (from the 94th) and Booba (the 92nd).

Watch.

Editor: For those interesting in the history, politics and culture of the banlieues or suburbs, we can recommend the following in English: “Banlieue” by Ernesto Castaneda; “Uprisings in the Banlieue,” by Etienne Balibar; “Police Power and Race Riots in Paris;” “French working-class banlieues and black American ghetto: from conflation to comparison;” “Grassroots Political Militants: Banlieusards and Politics, Mute Magazine” by Emilio Qiadrelli;  the films: La Haine, Ma 6-T va crack-er, Games of Love and Chance, Neuilly Yo Mama; “Arab Noise and Ramadan Nights: Rai, Rap, and Franco-Maghrebi Identities;” and “The Paris Banlieue: Peripheries of Inequality.”

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