MC Solaar

After doing Lipsitz's article "History, Hip-Hop, and the Post Colonial Politics of Sound", I thought it was interesting how many different artists that Lipsitz talked about and incorporated into the article. There are so many different artists from all over the world, yet they all connect through music and sound and the messages they spread. One artist in the article in particular that I personally like, is MC Solaar. He is a french rapper. He was born in Senegal and then moved to France when he was 6 months old. He grew up in a predominantly french culture, but when we was 12 he went to Egypt for a year. While in Egypt MC Solaar discovered Afrika Bambaataa's Zulu Nation, which Lipsitz also talked about as a starting point in his article. I think that it's very interesting that Bambaataa's Zulu Nation spread around the world, and had such a creative influence to people. For MC Solaar, this inspired him to more actively pursue music. While balancing music and his studies, MC Solaar got a degree and then quickly released his first music, which achieved great success. He went on to become one of the most influential and popular french rappers in the world; his music spread and was listened to by fans spanning the globe.

In Lipsitz's article, he talks about LL Cool J's music, and how it's the beat that has the political message. I think in MC Solaar's music, he tends to have a steady beat and flow, which allows for the lyrics to be better heard, and for their message to proliferate.




In his 2007 album, Chapitre 7, MC Solaar changed his music style to incorporate different musical styles like rap, pop, and jazz all together. With this album, he addressed issues like war in Africa and child soldiers. I think it's really effective for music styles to be increasingly spread across the globe. Especially for music that emphasizes important issues that are going on in our world today, the spreading of music can spread awareness of problems that any society could be dealing with.