From the world of rap to that of rape (rape in English), there is only one letter… In recent months, the hip-hop scene, usually linked to drug trafficking or gang wars, has been facing a proliferation of more sordid affairs. each other. Starting with the case of Sean Combs (aka Puff Daddy), whose legal saga continues: the 55-year-old American producer and businessman, star of the 1990s-2000s, recently saw his request for parole be refused. Accused of having led a violent system of extortion and sex trafficking by some 120 people, including many minors, he will therefore remain in prison awaiting his trial scheduled for next May.
But the founder of the Bad Boy Records label, who notably revealed The Notorious BIG (killed in 1997), is not the only figure in the industry to become mired in a scandal of this kind. Already accused of pedophilia in 2016 and 2021, American DJ Afrika Bambaataa, a true pioneer of international hip-hop, is once again accused of sexual assault on a minor – something he has always defended.
“I needed personal development and support, if only to recognize that I was a victim”confided Solo, co-founder of the French group Assassin, to the microphone of “Clique” this Wednesday, November 27. “Being confronted with a predator, especially someone you admire, is the hardest thing”added this precursor of breakdancing in France, who was 17 years old at the time of the events. A poignant testimony, which is reminiscent of the words of Doc Gynéco (“If Africa doesn’t put it in the father”) in his single Classify me in variety (1996)…
An elite “like any other”
The phenomenon, although even more sinister across the Atlantic, is also spreading in French rap. At the end of October, the Paris Court of Appeal confirmed that the trial would be held and kept it under judicial control by Naps, Marseille “MC” accused of raping a young woman in 2021. As recently as November 29, The Parisian also revealed that JR O Crom (real name Karim Ballo), founding member of Sexion d’Assaut, a group particularly popular in the 2010s, is suspected of gang rape of a young man in the Marais district of Paris.
Matters as serious as they are paradoxical, when we know that many rappers, especially in France, have only too many words to denounce the “pointers » and others “pedosatanists” who would abound in the political-media sphere, like Vald (“too many pedophiles brother, take it out on the good ones “) In Shoot a minister (2014) or the very controversial Freeze Corleone (« In the rap game I have more children than in the basements of Bill Clinton’s house”) in a title in the name of the former American president (2023).
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The symbol is all the more dramatic when it comes to Afrika Bombaataa, co-founder in the 1970s of the Zulu Nation, an organization advocating peace in the neighborhoods and fighting against gang violence. “It’s terrible for the image of hip-hop, firstly because he is one of those who exported this culture around the world, but also and above all because he was very involved in good works . He is also the inventor of the slogan “Peace, love, unity and having fun” [Paix, amour, unité et s’amuser] », explain at the JDD the journalist Kévin Boucaud-Victoire, editor-in-chief of the Ideas of Mariannehowever, inviting “exercise caution” in this case – the American DJ not having been convicted at this stage.
For theauthor of Think rap (Éditions de l’Aube, 2024)cases like those of P.Diddy are, more broadly, part of “in the continuity » of those visible in other “high levels of society”like cinema or the business world. “We are talking about a man ofe power, which used its image and its influence for sexual purposes. It’s a fairly classic pattern, a bit like Jeffrey Epstein”develops the specialist. Before seeing, clear : “The hip-hop world likes to set itself up as a counter-culture and to position itself as spokesperson for the dominated in the face of corrupt villains. But all this proves, if necessary given the success of this musical genre, that rap has become an elite like any other! »
