SDM: “With Booba, we speak the same language”

Leonard Manzambi or Leonard Beni Mosabu (the rapper keeps his real name unclear) grew up in Clamart in Hauts-de-Seine. The French department of all the gaps: the one which has the highest standard of living after Paris but also the one where 12% of the population lives below the poverty line. It is in this context that the rapper grows up.with his mother, his brother, his sisters, his aunts and uncles. In a small hut”he specifies. At school, the diversity allows him to meet young people from the upper classes who are not always tender when faced with an old-fashioned sweater or holey sneakers. Growing up in this environment makes him want to succeed at all costs. “It helped me a lot to move forward in my life, to simply look for something bigger.” He learns how to behave depending on the context in which he finds himself. “I have become a chameleon, I know how to adapt to any kind of situation. Today I can have a discussion with anyone on this earth and be like a fish in water.”

Every summer, he goes to the Democratic Republic of Congo, to be with his grandmother. He learns the history of his country, the reasons for his family’s emigration to Europe. “It taught me to be proud to be black, to be proud of where I come from, to realize the childhood my mother had. These are things that mean a lot to me.” Despite the death of his grandmother, he continues to go there, aware of the importance of“be close to your origins”.

Rap as a driving force for success

SDM discovered rap in college. At home, we only listen to Congolese music. His father, Bob Masua, is a renowned producer of seben and rumba. He grew up listening to rappers from home, from Lunatic, Booba’s first group, to Salif. His desire to make a career out of it developed a little before Covid. His first passion being football, it is in sport that he hopes to make a career. But his growth (he measures two meters) puts a damper on his hopes of becoming a great striker. He finds himself on defense and loses interest in the game. So rap seems like a good plan B. He leaves Jack Fire featuring another rising Clamart rapper: PLK. A title which gives him his first gold single.

His trajectory takes a decisive turn when he attracts the attention of Booba thanks to mutual acquaintances who make him listen to his music. They meet a few months later. The big guy is not impressed. “The discussion is quite fluid. We have the same codes, we speak the same language. He simply told me that I had everything to be an artist and that he would like to shine a little more light on me.” B2O sees in him the new star of its label and as SDM reminds us, whose platinum records pile up hit after hit, “he gave me a chance and I agreed with him. To him and to many others.”

Stay true to your principles

In 2024, the rapper is nominated for the Victoires de la Musique in the Original Song of the Year category with the hit German racing car. He announces that he will not perform at the ceremony. The previous year, he had criticized the choice to award the Victory for Revelation of the Year to Pierre de Maere. The Belgian was nominated against the rapper/singer Tiakola, very close to SDM. The decision is final on the Victoires side: his selection is rejected. But SDM has principles and remains faithful to them.

Rapper SMD removed from the Victoires de la Musique nominees

Rap as revenge on life

ALVALM tells of the melancholy of success but also of revenge on those who predestined him to a dark future. “According to them, I was doomed to failure/They put me at the bottom of their ladder, made me believe that my city, I can’t escape it,” he raps he on Merci, first single from the album. “I have often been belittled by teachers, by ordinary people. A teacher quietly told me: “either you work at school, or you will end up a bum or like the grown-ups back home”. He had words that you shouldn’t tell a child. It creates more hatred than anything else.” Words which touched him deeply and which were also a driving force in his quest for success. “I still have a lot of things to do and accomplish but with the little I have done, I am already thinking of him. And I hope he sees me and bites his fingers.”

SDM is a rap lover, as we saw in the telecrochet Nouvelle école on Netflix, where he defended a certain artistic aesthetic with kindness, arguments and expertise. If the Belgian Youssef Swatt’s won, it is thanks to the strength of conviction of the French rapper. “SDM believed in it a lot and it saved me”the Tournaisian rapper told us after the final last July. It is also this facet of his art that he exhibits: a technical, melodic rap, which speaks of the wounds of childhood, of the world around him, of success. For better or for worse, to life to death.

ALVALM by SDM, available on streaming platforms, on CD and vinyl.