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Listen to the Songs
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Those
Arab youth who were born in France are known there as Beurre or “Butter.”
[1]
They
received their education at French schools, assimilated the francophone
culture, and simultaneously bear their original Arab Islamic heritage. It
has been a must for those Arab Muslim youth to have their own distinctive
musical expression. It expresses their dual identity, a sense of “cultural
loss” and that unique bittersweet sense of belonging to a “certain
country,” materially and geographically known as France and imaginatively and spiritually felt to be the “Arab countries” with
which they are not acquainted but of which they dream amid a living reality
mostly characterized by social disqualification and racism.
The
contradictory living circumstances experienced by the children of the Arab
Muslim immigrants have begotten a unique musical expression that bears the
complexes of their personality and all their hopes and pains. It also bears
the cares of searching for a “certain home” and for values compatible
with both their ancestors’ Eastern heritage and their Western reality.
This investigation attempts at probing the musical expressions of France’s Arab Muslim youth.
Born
in the Ghetto
Karim,
nicknamed “Remc” (crème reordered), was born in the suburbs of
Saint Denis on the northern borders of Paris, which is home to the largest Arab Muslim population in
France. This year he released his first cassette tape titled My Compatriots.
In St. Denis, known numerically as Zone 93,
[2]
which is very famous, Remc spent his childhood in the HLM [3]
blocks,
or the Social Cooperation Housing Blocks devoted solely to the African and
Arab immigrants and known to all as immigrant-only ghettos.
“Among
unemployment, a sense of disqualification in work and housing,
marginalization, and an impossible desire to integrate,” Remc in an
interview with IslamOnline.net points out, “the song ‘My Compatriots’
emerged, after which I titled the whole tape. In fact, it was a 2003 autumn
night when I felt this song. That night, I had been standing idly in front
of the gate of the Queen night-club (in Channelisier Street) because the gatekeeper refused to grant me access merely because of my
Arab features. I was born here in a French district and only visited Algeria, my father’s homeland, five times during the thirty years of my life.”
In
fact, Remc’s story is the story of nearly four generations of French
nationals of Arab or Muslim origin who had been born in Franceand received their school education at the republic’s schools but could
not feel they were citizens like those white-skinned and blue-eyed people.
The issue of searching for belonging, therefore, is one of the most
outstanding concerns in the songs of France’s Arab Muslim youth.
Suburban
Songs
The
French Arab Muslim youth songs are also known as the French Suburban Songs,
because most of the Arab community lives in those suburbs. They are also
known as the French Rap Songs or the Beurre (Butter) Songs. In his paper on
the French Suburban Songs, titled “Suburbs Between Rap and Rai” (Rai is
a famous type of Algerian music that blends a plethora of different Arab and
Western musical styles), Maihoub Millany writes:
French
rap, which rose in France in the late 1980s, bears in its content the same identity crisis from which
American rap emerged to reflect the black Americans’ sense of loss and
disqualification. The songs of the Arab Muslim youth first appeared in
Marseille, in the south of France, which became heavily populated by immigrants in the late 1980s. Amateur
bands formed among the slum youth and the songs reached their stardom with
the Butter Band, which had been active in the suburbs of Toulouse, southeast
France. The Butter Band reached its peak of fame after participating in the last
legislative elections of Toulouse as the first musical band to exploit its fame in order to express the cares
of the French Arab Muslims.
The
content of the music produced by the Arab Muslim youth in France is overwhelmingly concerned with the issue of searching for belonging. About
the lyrics, the singer Remc says, “I’m neither searching
for roots—because I know they’re Arabic—nor for a home—because my ID
papers are French—but I am constantly searching for a sense
of adjustment to this double identity, a sense I haven’t been able
to attain to this moment. The songs express a spiritual home which is lost
until now.”
The
Search for Identity
The
most striking characteristic of this sense of loss amid two cultures and two
worlds is the use of Arabic words (in Algerian and Moroccan accents) along
with French words and the use of Eastern Moroccan melodies along with the
Western rap cadence. The following part of Remc’s song titled “My
Compatriots” manifests this duality:
Arabic
Stanza
Peace
peace peace peace peace peace peace
French
Stanza
Dwellers
of the 93
My
compatriots
Arabic
Stanza
Peace
peace peace
My
compatriots
French
Stanza
For
our community
Dwellers
of the 93
For
our community
Arabic
Stanza
My
compatriots. My compatriots.
I’m
telling you something
My
compatriots
Hail
my compatriots
Today
French
Stanza
Everyday
Dwellers
of the 93
In
the year 2004
For
the family’s sake
For
the traditions’ sake
The
Arab spirit is in our blood
Veterei
[4]
Bejayya and Wahran [5]
Death
accidents
[6]
The
Corridor of Death
It
is clear that the homeland, the compatriots, the community, and the Arabs
are all at the heart of the songs by young French Arab Muslims. This state
of being torn between two affiliations is also apparent on Remc’s tape
cover, which depicts dozens of Arab-French youth divided into two groups,
the first dressed in the traditional Moroccan jubbah and the second in
Western clothes with sport shoes. Remc does not forget to stamp the top of
the cover with the crescent and the five-pointed star so as to refer to his
yearning and clinging to his fathers’ homeland and culture.
In
fact, the crescent and the star on the tapes and CDs by the French Arab
Muslim youth have become a token distinguishing these tapes. The Sun Band
places the crescent and the star on top of the famous Parisian Arc de
Triomphe with statues with Afro-Arab faces (unlike all the white-colored
French statues that surround the real Arc) surrounding it.
The
search for a spiritual home, other than the geographical home which is
France, stems from the specifics of the residential troubles faced by the
inhabitants of the marginal slums of the 92, 93, 94, and 95 zones where the
immigrants live under harsh economic conditions marked by unemployment, drug
abuse, a sense of loss, and yearning for the ancestors’ cities in North
Africa. We have to listen to the track “Inside the Head of a Butter
Youth” in order to understand the youths’ sense of loss and pain:
Arabic
Stanza (Algerian accent)
Hark,
Brother.
Speak
Arabic.
We
have to cheer up in this life.
We
have to help the family.
We
have neither dirham nor work.
How
are we going to get married?
Will
we have a future?
Will
we have a future, may Allah be merciful with your parents.
French
Stanza
Inside
the head of a Butter youth
Who
is originally from Barbousha in the minor tribes’ region
Yearns
to the fig and olive of the homeland
The
Inquisition cops search his bags and search his customs to which he clings
….
Draws
the smoke of a Marlboro cigarette.
Worry
has invaded his head.
Misery
in the slums tears him.
Money
for them [the French] is before love.
What
will you do afterwards?
I
don’t know.
You’ve
gone beyond the age of 20, but you don’t feel at home.
Arabic
Stanza
Curse
the devil.
French
Stanza
You
quench your thirst from two rivers.
This
can’t be compared with how our ancestors lived.
They
teach us how to live
And
give us treasures in this waste world.
They
teach us the values as if new.
Most
of them were illiterate and lived the war and famine days.
Most
of them lost their relatives to give us freedom.
They
taught us to be proud of our strugglers,
All
the blood spilled for the capital Algeria battle.
….
Inside
the head of a Butter youth,
An
Algerian Muslim,
A
brother pointed to with fingers in France,
But
he’s proud.
For
the family we feel pain,
But
we endure until the last breath.
Islamic
Influence and the Butter Songs
The
religious expressions in “Inside the Head of a Butter Youth” and other
tracks are another outstanding characteristic. Words like al-hamdu llilah
(Praise be to God), in sha’ Allah (God willing) and khuya
(my brother), pronounced in Moroccan accent, encourage the clinging to the
ancestors’ values.
Sociologist
Marie Claude-Loulouch, who specializes in the behavioral phenomena of the
suburban youth, states,
Since
rap was born, the religious expressions have remained a manifestation of
that devotion and faithfulness to the ancestors’ values. However, in the
last few years rap songs have undergone a transformation in which improper,
violent, and disgraceful language, which had become very popular, has
been dropped.
The
researcher informed IslamOnline.net that the
harsh social circumstances and racism in the work place and housing
encouraged rude and violent expressions against gendarmes, tax inspectors,
political parties, and politicians. Many transformations within the suburbs,
especially the da`wah expansion of Islamic religious groups, somewhat
contributed to the purging of offensive language from several songs, though
the violent melodic and pronunciation style remained the same.
When
we listen to “Portrait” sung by the singer Ibrahim, we hear expressions
reflecting the impact of the religious groups and, at the same time, hear
all aspects of verbal violence, the sense of loss and the desire to
integrate amid a French social reality in which integration is a political
catchword exploited during election campaigns.
French
Stanza
I
have a suspect face.
To
them I am a criminal.
I
never dreamt I would become a gendarme mayor.
The
gendarmes ...
[7]
…
I
have a small problem
With
the Heineken [beer].
I’m
ancient.
I
have a small problem with women.
I
don’t sanctify what’s haram [unlawful].
In
fact, the expansion of Islamic influence in France, although affecting the
content of rap music, has not yet managed to contain and employ these songs
for its own purposes. This is because the
religious view on music—in Marie Claude-Lou ouch's opinion—is still
strict even in the West itself.
The
researcher adds that several Islamic rap songs, presented during the last
Bourges Conference of the Union of Islamic Organizations in France, stirred much debate within the conservative Islamic organizations in
France. In the meantime, Mennia Al-Yahyawi, an activist in the Muslim Youth
Organization and a favorite of the Union of
Islamic Organizations, stated to IslamOnline.net that “it’s OK for rap
music to express the issues of Muslims in France because the melodies are nearer to the experiences of the Muslim youth who
grew up in the French suburbs.”
Violent
Lyrics
Researcher
Maihoub Millany states:
I
strongly supported the revolt represented in rude expressions—a revolt
against a tough reality whose most remarkable characteristics are racism and
discrimination at work, at home, and in every public place.
One wouldn’t expect anything but the
use of verbal violence against the violence of reality, the
disqualification, the marginalization and the deprivation experienced by the
Moroccan inhabitants of the French suburbs. Those people are deprived of
getting acquainted with their origins and where they came from. The French
history syllabuses find it sufficient to teach the migrants only the history
of France and the French Revolution while never bringing up the history of France’s previous colonies (Tunisia,
Morocco, and Algeria) where the roots of most of the immigrant’s children lie. The Arab and
Islamic civilizations are only revealed at home where historical incidents
are recounted and where the rituals of prayer, fasting, and feasts are
taught.
The
violence apparent in the selected words of the Butter songs manifests itself
very clearly in the melodies and the cadence used. The cadence that emerges
and is repeated reflects the monotony of daily life in the slums. It is this
rhythm—which sounds like hammer strikes, and like monotonous, violent
pulses—that characterize all these songs alike.
While
the topics of the lyrics change, this musical style never changes and
expresses—according to the writer of “Suburbs Between Rap and Rai”—
at the same time a revolt against the quiet classic style, the tough living
circumstances, a violent reality that can only be expressed with violence, a
cultural loss, and a search for belonging. The only escape is to listen to
the monotonous repeated sound till the end.
Listening
to any of the Butter songs, one feels this angry protesting and searching,
reflected in the violent content with its desire to find a race, an
identity, a homeland, and a dream. This dream has always been cherished by
the Arab youth living in the French suburbs, who think its realization would
require much time, much pain, and much searching for Al- Qayrawan,
Costantina, and Fez
in France.
[1]
Reordering the letters of names is a remarkable phenomenon adopted by
French suburban youth and deserves a special sociological research. The word
remc is a reordering of crème (cream); the word Arabe
reordered is beurre (butter). Thus, the naming of the Arab Muslims
born in France
as “Butter” bears two meanings: The first is that they are Arabs; the
second is that they are not like the other Arabs because they were born in
France. They are the “butter” produced by the French-Arab interaction.
[2]
The 93, 94, and 95 zones are housing slums mostly inhabited by
immigrants. These zones are known for their lower living standards, higher
rate of unemployment, drug addiction, and violence. In recent years the
French authorities have been facing the new problem of Islamic outspread in
these districts, coded as “Sensitive Zones.”
[3]
The HLM blocks derive their name from the initials of the three French
words standing for “Social Collective Housing.” The HLM blocks spread
out in the Paris suburbs where there is a dense population of Arab Muslim immigrants. The
French government recently began work on renewing and improving these
blocks, a project known as Minister Pirlou Project for the Sensitive Zones.
[4]
Veterei is a city with heavy Arabic population in the “92 I” zone,
southeast France.
[5]
Two Algerian cities.
[6]
Mentioning traffic accidents is an outstanding characteristic of the
Butter songs. Many studies have proved that traffic death in France represents the most widespread cause of death to the youth of Arab/Muslim
origin.
[7]
After the word gendarmes, an offensive word was dropped.
Hadi
Yahmed, IslamOnline.net Paris Correspondent
