It's Bigger Than Hip-Hop
Just in case you missed it, CBC Arts has a four-part series called Hang the MC, which examines how hip-hop culture has become a scapegoat for violence:
French rap has always sounded similar to American rap, particularly within its hardcore camp. The reason is environmental. Social conditions in the low-income banlieues (suburbs) that ring Paris and other French cities mirror those within U.S. ghettos, which are renowned for incubating hip hop. Vast immigrant populations live in communes, crumbling Lego stacks of public-housing developments. Poverty is rampant, unemployment is severe, illicit drugs abound. Dans la banlieue (les banlieues is grammatically correct; la banlieue is what the locals say), people of colour are made to feel marginalized from mainstream society, citizens in paperwork only.
