Culture Hip-Hop

Cultura hiphop

Kultura hip-hopu

Hip-Hop-Kultur

Hip-Hop Culture

Cultura hip-hop

Celebrating hip-hop culture in all its forms from street art to rap.

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Coming out of France’s suburban ghetto, the first French hip-hop artists take the country by storm in 1990. Names like Assassin, NTL and IAM were politically engaged and ready to shake things up.

Concrete Feeling (1/10): Rap and Politics

Intro

Lluvia grew up in a deprived area in Bogota. Both of her uncles are in jail for drug offences, and her classmates are either pregnant or dead. When they were running the streets doing drugs, she was dancing. With her group Tribu Newen B-Girls, she's won first prize at one of the biggest Hip Hop festivals in Latin America. She dreams big. 

Breaking in Soacha

When Lluvia's classmates were running the streets doing drugs, she was dancing

Bogostreets (10/10)

Raphaël Stora, Parisian  and ex hip hop dancer, goes through fifteen years of personal film footage. He goes on a journey through dance and film to meet the latest Parisian talent.

Raphaël Stora, Parisian  and ex hip hop dancer, goes through fifteen years of personal film footage

Grounds (1/8)

In 2019, Les Indes galantes was performed at the Opera de la Bastille in Paris, hip hop style. This baroque opera, composed by Jean-Philippe Rameau, is an ode to colonial exoticism, and its reworking is the brainchild of Bintou Dembélé, the first black woman to choreograph a ballet at the Paris Opera.

Gymnastics

In 2019, Les Indes galantes was performed at the Opera de la Bastille in Paris, hip hop style

Operatic Hip Hop: Dance Decolonised

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From South Africa to Morocco, Algeria to Nigeria, the breakdancing scenes of Africa is dynamic, alive and always changing.   

Bboys & Bgirls Africa

H.I.P H.O.P was the world’s first TV programme about hip-hop culture that caused a sensation when it was launched in France in 1984. 

The Real Story of H.I.P H.O.P

French Game shows how artists from France such as MC Solaar and Damso appropriated an American cultural form.

French Game

The mainly BAME neighbourhoods of Paris were places mainstream media didn't go and didn't talk about. So the local rapper's became the CNN of their communities. They rapped about unemployment, police violence, everyday racism and lack of a future. They wanted to be heard by the society that had pushed them to the fringes.

Concrete Feeling (2/10)

The mainly BAME neighbourhoods of Paris were places mainstream media didn't go and didn't talk about. So the local rapper's became the CNN of their communities

On Mission

Rap took off: no longer a genre on the fringes of acceptability or even on the fringes of what is considered music: it was everywhere. It was on TV, and in film, and it stormed the charts with major commercial successes. But that left many rappers with an uncomfortable choice: stay true to their underground roots or embrace the mainstream.

Concrete Feeling (3/10)

Many rappers with an uncomfortable choice: stay true to their underground roots or embrace the mainstream

Authenticity

The rapper is a social animal. He moves in groups and collectives, like Time Bomb or Beat 2 Boul. They're like famillies, only with a message and a vision. And maybe that family is necessary: during the height of racial tensions in 90s France, controversial immigration laws left many communities feeling under attack. .

Concrete Feeling (4/10)

The rapper is a social animal. He moves in groups and collectives, like Time Bomb or Beat 2 Boul

Each to Their Own Gang

Every generation of rapper in France tackles the diffcult and sometimes violent relationship between the police and urban French youth. And in the 90s, it became urgent after 17-year-old Makomé M'Bowolé was killed by a bullet to the head at point blank range during a police interrogation at a police station, triggering riots. 

Concrete Feeling (5/10)

17-year-old Makomé was killed during a police interrogation, triggering riots and a generation of rappers to address race and police

Interlude [Police]

Some rappers aren't content to work for somebody else. They intend to decide for themselves on their own terms rather than feel controlled by the record industry. They want to stay independent.

Concrete Feeling (6/10)

Some rappers aren't content to work for somebody else

Serious Business

In 1996, after a law was passed demanding that 40 percent of the music played on French radio be French, the radio station Skyrock became THE station to go to to listen to rap, and its influence grew to the point that it was Skyrock that could make or break music careers. It's been a love-hate relationship between the commercial radio and the artists who need to get them to play their tracks - whilst resisting the influence commercial appeal has on their work.

Concrete Feeling (7/10)

Skyrock became THE station to go to to listen to rap, and its influence grew to the point that it was Skyrock that could make or break music careers

We're the First

Rap has grown mainstream; and in doing so, has it lost its soul? And which rap has value, which one is the authentic rap? There's socially conscious rap, gangsta rap, protest rap and poetic rap. But isn't true rap about giving a voice to the voiceless, and so intrinsically an act of protest? 

Concrete Feeling (8/10)

Rap has grown mainstream; and in doing so, has it lost its soul?

Authenticity [Part II]

2005. In the aftermath of the biggest riots in France since May 68, the political class has to find the culprit. It's not the unemployment, not the failure of urban policies for the past 20 years...  the problem is rap, which is anti-France. But France is going to get rid of the scum, authorities promise.

Concrete Feeling (9/10)

2005. In the aftermath of the biggest riots in France since May 68, the political class points the finger not at lack of opportunity but on rap

Everything Burns

French rap may not have achieved the social changes it wanted, but it is now a firm favourite on the airwaves. This is a cultural revolution: rap is chanson francaise. 

Concrete Feeling (10/10)

French rap may not have achieved the social changes it wanted, but it is now a firm favourite on the airwaves

Outro

Concrete Feelings tells the story of French hip-hop. It’s about rap as social comment and how French hip-hop climbed the charts to become the most popular music in France.

Concrete Feeling

Cult films like Charlie Ahearn’s ‘Wild Style (1982), Henry Chalfant’s ‘Style Wars’ (1984) and ‘Beat Street (1984) by Harry Belafonte switched on a generation of young Germans to breakdance and hip-hop culture. Interviews with the first graffiti generation from Dortmund, Berlin and Frankfurt.

The Rise of Graffiti Writing (1/6)

Dortmund, Berlin & Frankfurt

The BBC crew around Jay One, Skki and Ash is one of the most influential pioneers in French graffiti. They were some of the first artists in Europe to develop their own style and break free from New York influence.

The Rise of Graffiti Writing (2/6)

BBC Crew Paris

The graffiti movement from New York spread throughout Scandinavia after the release of Henry Chalfant's film Style Wars (1984). Throughout the whole of Sweden, hundreds of kids begin to write on the walls. Among them, ZIGGY and DISEY, who developed their own elaborate styles.

The Rise of Graffiti Writing (3/6)

After the release of Henry Chalfant's film Style Wars in 1984, an entire generation of kids started writing on the walls

The Birth of Graffiti in Stockholm

Darco and Gawki got to know FBI-Crew in 1985 in Paris. They become an integral part of the Paris graffiti movement with a style typical of that city. Paris was the center of the European scene, but graffiti artists in Munich, Hamburg, Amsterdam and Copenhagen were also developing their own takes on the trend.

The Rise of Graffiti Writing (4/6)

Like a local language, each city in Europe developed its own style of graffiti

Local Street Style

Graffiti writer Bomber from Frankfurt and Shark from Dortmund are cornerstones of the German scene. Dortmund became a graffiti icon in the Ruhr area in the mid-1980s and was the catalyst for important developments in other large cities... much to the displeasure of residents. 

The Rise of Graffiti Writing (5/6)

Graffiti writer Bomber from Frankfurt and Shark from Dortmund are cornerstones of the German scene

Writing on Trains: Dortmund & Frankfurt

Graffiti came to Berlin in the early 1980s. The first pieces were created directly on the Berlin Wall. But it was only with the fall of the wall did the whole city become a huge playground for graffiti artists.

The Rise of Graffiti Writing (6/6)

It was only with the fall of the Berlin wall did the German capital come into its own as a graffiti playground

Berlin in the Nineties

The history of graffiti writing from its beginnings in Europe in the early eighties to today, as told by those that were there