“Sample & French rap”, a book for fans, but not only…

Impossible not to have heard of “DJ Mehdi: made in France”, the documentary crowned at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2024, broadcast on Arte in September 2024 (more than 4 million views on the channel’s website or on YouTube from the first two weeks). Six episodes on the little sampling genius who died in 2011, at the age of 34. An artist with nimble fingers for creating Music by unearthing and then transforming bits of already existing sounds, an essential character in French rap for twenty years.

DJ Mehdi is also a recurring figure in “Sample & French rap”, both in the interviews which open the book and then among the 100 pieces of French rap (a double page for each title) where the original sounds sampled for the create. Those who have not denied their pleasure with the documentary will do the same with this work. And it is probably no coincidence that the cover of Ideal J’s first album, discussed at length in the documentary, appears on the cover of the book.

2 A book for those who love French rap

If you are a fan of French rap, and even if it is from the last century, this book will not disappoint you, quite the contrary. Oxmo Puccino, 1995, SCH, AMER PNL Ministry, Booba, the Fonky Family, Nepal, Disiz, Ninho, La Mafia K’1 Fry, Caballero & Jeanjass, MC Solaar, La Fève, NTM… In the 100 pieces listed there are nearly 40 years of French rap and the “secret” of some of their pieces: parts of melodies, sounds and rhythms of others musical universes, sometimes as distant as they are renowned, sampled to create a new artistic work.

Everything can be pecked or devoured with, sometimes, succulent mixtures: Ideal J and Maxime Leforestier, Sexion d’Assaut and John Coltrane, Kenny Arkana and Ofra Haza, La Fouine and Sade, SCH and Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares…

3 A book for those who have children, or grandchildren, who love French rap

You like music but you have no appetite for rap, from here or elsewhere, unlike those around you. Jazz, soul, French song over 50 years, soundtrack, classical, rock… You will find here at least one reference to make you happy, or at least remind and/or explain to your hip-hop fans that if the music comes perhaps – being blues, rap comes from elsewhere. By Gabriel Yared (whose TF1 8 p.m. credits inspired Assassin), by Santana (Hamza), by Miles Davis (Les sages Poètes de la Rue), by Curtis Mayfield (113), by Fairuz (Lunatic), by Jacques Brel (Koma and Rocé), Keith Jarret (Rocca), Kate Bush (Pone), Bobby Womack (NTM) or… Nicolas Peyrac (Carlito).
4 A book for those who already thought they knew everything about French rap

If you haven’t learned anything from the doc on DJ Mehdi, if you already know that the Fonky Family sampled Radio Londres, like IAM with Christopher Young or Salif with Claude François, it’s the first part of the book that will hold your attention . There we find interviews by the author, Brice Miclet, with eminent figures of the movement. They look back on the small and big stories of sampling in France, how they experienced it and participated in it, delivering tasty anecdotes along the way.
On the menu, by appearance order: Dee Nasty, Logilo, Tefa, Melopheelo et Zoxea, Lord Funk, Pone, Rocé, Just Music Beats, Mani Deïz, Kyo Itachi, Pierre Lautier et Mezzo Millo.
5 A book for those who like to join their ears to pleasure

Reading the history of unknown songs while discovering that some of the sounds that are part of them are well known, but without being able to listen to the whole thing can be frustrating. Brice Miclet, who has already looked at the US version of the sample in “Sample! At the origins of hip-hop” (editions Le Mot et le Reste, 2018), has thought of everything in his work: before the start of the dissection of the 100 samples there is a QR code referring “to a playlist on YouTube in which are listed in order of appearance all the titles, all the sound elements, samplers and samples, covered in the 100 chronicles.