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Charlie Hebdo and the French rapper who painted himself into a corner









When the rapper Nekfeu spat out a verse calling for ‘a bonfire for those dogs, Charlie Hebdo’ in 2013, he could not have known the horror that would unfold years later

















Paris remembers … Marchers hold banners making up the eyes of Charlie Hebdo editor Stéphane Charbonnier, who was killed in the attack on the magazine. Photograph: Charles Platiau/Reuters




Jeremy Allen in Paris


Wednesday 14 January 2015 10.02 EST







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Charlie is everywhere in Paris right now. Sprayed on walls and stencilled on pavements, written all over newsstands and down in the Métro, with the free magazine A Nous Paris changing its name to A Nous Charlie in solidarity. We are all Charlie. Well almost. 
On Sunday, following the historic march in Paris, the TV channel France 2 ran its own live homage to the victims of the attack on Charlie Hebdo, with musical acts ranging from the well-known in France – Benjamin Biolay – to the little known until last week – JB Bullet. Bullet has come to prominence after reworking a 1975 Renaud chanson, changing the words and title to #JeSuisCharlie, complete with hashtag, and in six days the original YouTube video has accumulated more than 2.6m views. Nobody from the French hip-hop community appeared on the programme – though we don’t know if that was because they weren’t invited, or refused to perform. Grand Corps Malade, a slam poet, was the most leftfield performer and the closest thing to a real rapper on the night. Otherwise, it was all Camille, Jeanne Cherhal and Alain Souchon as far as the eye could see. But the lack of hip-hop is perhaps unsurprising.
In 2013, a group of rappers from the 14th and 15th arrondissements in southern Paris recorded a track for the Nabil Ben Yadir movie La Marche, which was loosely based on events surrounding the March for Equality and Against Racism in 1983. The collective called themselves 1995 – after what was considered a good year for French rap – and featured Akhenaton, Disiz la Peste, Kool Shen and Nekfeu among others. Nekfeu, a popular MC from Nice who relocated to the 15th arrondissement, notably worked on the French remix of Ed Sheeran’s Sing.
Controversy arose when Nekfeu spat an incendiary line on Marche about wanting to bring an “autodafé contre ces chiens de Charlie Hebdo”, which roughly translated, calls for “a bonfire for those dogs, Charlie Hebdo”. That was thought to be in direct response to the publication’s cartoons of Muhammad in 2006 and again in 2012, and the announcement that the Prophet would be installed as guest editor, with yet further cartoons deemed blasphemous. The then actual, newly installed editor-in-chief, Stéphane Charbonnier, reacted to what he considered a threat from the group. 





“I don’t know the rapper and I don’t know his reputation,” Charbonnier said at the time, “but I’m appalled at this incitement to burn down a newspaper. Especially as [a firebombing] has already happened.”
 Charbonnier went on to question the link between a film ostensibly about anti-racism and a lyric that amounted to a provocation against freedom of expression. In response, the producer of La Marche, Hugo Selignac, spoke of his “dismay” at the “violent” lyrics, and the track was dropped from the soundtrack (though it did feature in the movie itself, albeit briefly in the background). To further allay the stink, he reiterated the right to freedom of speech, and declared that any funds from the soundtrack would go to an anti-racism charity.
Fast forward to last week, and following Wednesday’s murders at the Charlie Hebdo offices, the position of some of the 1995 collective has changed. The rapper Desiz was particularly contrite, posting a jeremiad on Facebook about how he was “devastated” by the attacks and filled with a “cocktail of fear, sadness and anger”. He spoke of the harsh realities of growing up a Muslim in the era since 9/11, and shared his anguish and worries for the future for his four children, and more immediately his worries for his mother “when she goes to work tomorrow”. He signed off the emotional missive by saying what translates as: “France is not grieving for Charlie Hebdo or the freedom of expression. France is in mourning for itself, because after yesterday it is dead and will never be the same.”
On the day of the massacre, Nekfeu posted a more succinct message on Facebook beginning: “I would like to express my sincere condolences to the families and relatives of the victims of the savage killings that took place today at the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo.”
The rapper claimed the intention of his words in Marche were not intended personally, but that he was exercising an equally provocative position to that adopted by the newspaper and its journalists. He added that he was not affiliated to “any religious community” and had “no political pretensions”, but was just a sincere rapper coming from a world where the expression of violent urges “isn’t to be taken literally”.
Users of YouTube have been leaving comments under the video, including Christo Godef, who commented: “Congratulations Nekfeu, you got your bonfire. Congratulations Islam, a religion of peace.”
The controversy echoes the furore that surrounded Primal Scream’s Bomb the Pentagon track, written a month before the Pentagon was actually attacked on 9/11. With the band somewhat rattled, the working title was quickly changed to Rise. Bobby Gillespie has remained doggedly obtuse when questioned about it since, though then bassist Mani admitted to NME at the time that he felt “pretty numbed by it. It’s a very strange scenario to find myself in. We’re in a position where we could get fucking lynched, man.”
The old adage “be careful what you wish for” certainly applies in both cases.
This article has been amended to state that the original Renaud song rewritten by JB Bullet was from 1975, not 2006 as previously published.



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