Paris is Dissing

Rappers are getting political in Paris, and damn near the only rapper getting political in America is named Paris. What does this mean?

French rappers in war of words with government

A rap song which calls on fans to "screw France" and "exterminate" government ministers has so enraged the interior minister that he has threatened to take legal action against the band responsible.
But the group, Sniper, has responded in kind, threatening to sue Nicolas Sarkozy for defamation for calling them racist and anti-semitic.

Critics have denounced their music as anti-women, anti-French, anti-European, anti-semitic and anti-police. The lyrics of La France, a tirade against the inequalities of French society, triggered Mr Sarkozy's anger. The song describes France as a "bitch", and suggests that the only way for disaffected young people with "hatred running in their arteries" to get their voices heard is to go out and start "burning cars".

Another song on the band's latest album Stone Throwers attacks the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians and suggests that "carnage" is a logical response to destruction of homes.

Mr Sarkozy said last week that he would launch legal proceedings if the band again performed in public material which he described as "perfectly scandalous... racist and anti-semitic". He added: "Democracy dictates that one respects the rules. Those people who don't will have to answer to the nation's justice system."

This year Mr Sarkozy pushed through a bill which made "offending the dignity of the republic" an imprisonable offence.

The band's four members, El Tunisiano, Aketo, Black Renega and DJ Boudj, all from the northern Parisian suburb of Val d'Oise, said: "We are not anti-semitic, but we are on the side of all Israelis who want peace... You are wrong to think that we are racist.

"We are French like you, but we are beginning to wonder whether you accept us as such."

Raising the possibility that the minister had not listened to their songs, they added: "We would like to believe that you were ill informed and carried away by temporary demagogic hysteria, and we are ready to accept your excuses."

This triggered a fresh salvo from Mr Sarkozy, who said: "To say that 'France is a bitch' and a 'nation of fascists' which one 'should screw' is insulting, to say that one should exterminate the 'ministers' and that police officers are 'arseholes' is insulting."