Le Feu dans le Ghetto (excerpt)

....I witnessed these phenomena firsthand over a decade ago while living in Aubervilliers, a suburb of Paris. I was there trying to carve out a niche as a hip hop impresario, away from the competition on the other side of the pond. To be honest, I didn’t get the sense that Jacques Chirac….don't like Black people when I traversed the boulevards of Paris itself. However, when in the boondocks of Aubervilliers, Neuilly and other places I frequented, you definitely got the sense that there were tensions under the surface that might give a better explanation of why Meursault killed the Arab.

Upon entering a café early one morning to enjoy a smoke and a cup of Joe, I was asked politely by the barista behind the counter “Did you know this is an Arab café.” Don’t get it twisted, the Black man has made an impression all over the world. Conversely, one night while scenery set trippin' in the wrong 'hood, I was followed by some young Arab lads who were looking to stick me for my paper. It was then that I realized that I was in the ‘hood and not all of Paris was a postcard.

I was told by my roommates that this was a big problem all over the city. Many people had been stabbed by poor little Aladdin-like jobless youth in pursuit of their purses. Despite these warnings, I continued to encounter various French youth of the entire plebiscite, of all genotype and phenotype. As ominous as the situation with the youth and the ghettoes were depicted to me, when you can see the Eiffel Tower peaking over the high rise buildings, the situation doesn’t seem quite as menacing.

Most of the young men I met didn’t have a job and were on the dole. On the other hand, some owned skateboard shops and clothing stores. Many of my friends back home were involved in some kind of dodgy business involving slippy money also, so young niggas hustlin' just seemed normal to me. Besides, I could hardly tell much difference between the Gallic B-Boys I met and their coal Black African émigré posse-mates. It just didn’t seem like anybody was less well off because of their skin color. It just seemed like none of them cared that much about money.

As far as the music goes, I did not ultimately find the next Run DMC that I could market to Francophone Africa. Yet, I was exposed to the urgent cries of Supreme NTM, Assasin, I Am, MC Solaar and my favorite Timide et Sans Complexe. These French hip-hops rapped with the ferocity of NWA and the urgency of Public Enemy while still remaining essentially French.

I must admit though, that despite their earnest cries of desperation, at the time I thought they were merely mimicking what they’d heard coming from their cousins in Compton and Brooklyn. Although it was hard to tell, my new friends insisted that things in Gay Paris were not quite what they seemed. Even back then, they insisted that the streets of Paris were poised to run redder than red one day....