Abstract

When it comes to hip-hop, France is particularly noteworthy since it has the second largest market for rap music production and consumption in the world, following the U.S. This paper proposes that the discourse of French rap music both reflects and influences the construction of hybridized black-inflected identities, particularly among minority youth living in diaspora; i.e., physically separated and widely dispersed from their ancestral homelands on a permanent or semi-permanent basis. In this regard, diasporic French hip-hoppers are involved in a complex process of reconfiguring and synthesizing relevant idioms and vernaculars found not only in global hip-hop and their “native” culture, but also in their “host” country of France. Drawing on framing theory, this paper investigates both French-African and French-Muslim frames and related anti-racist perspectives articulated in French rap music, which have been socially and cognitively organized into diasporic discourses. Research questions addressed include the following: How have global flows of people, ideas, and artifacts, impacted hip-hop’s origins and metamorphosis in France? In what ways have the African and Muslim diasporas influenced French hip-hop? What social and demographic factors have encouraged diasporic youth to adopt black-inflected identities tied to hip-hop? This paper analyzes a wide variety of sources, including the lyrical content of selected rap songs recorded by North and West African Muslims, living in France.