Meet Medine, the pugnacious French rapper who has politics in his lyrics

Medine performing in Lyon, France, this month. Fans call his music enlightening and educational, but far-right critics say it disguises radical viewpoints

The French rapper Médine often compares his music to boxing: In a career spanning 15 years, he has thrown countless hooks and barbs.

His two favourite targets, the political far-right and religious fundamentalists, have punched back. Médine, who is Muslim, has received death threats from right-wing activists, and in 2015, he found out that he was on an ISIS kill list.

The blow he received in September knocked him out for weeks.

After months of outrage from far-right activists, who started a petition accusing Médine of “singing violent lyrics in the name of Islam,” the rapper cancelled two concerts at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris that were supposed to be the pinnacle of his current tour of France.

The Bataclan has become a hallowed site to many in France, after 89 people were killed there in a terrorist attack in 2015; opponents called the invitation for Médine to perform there an “indecency.” The rapper said he wanted to avoid demonstrations against the show out of respect for the victims’ families.

“I am aware that in the eye of the average French person, I embody many fears and delusions: I am a rapper, I have Algerian roots, I am Muslim, and I grew up in housing projects,” Médine, 35, said in a recent interview.

“What I had not realised is that, in 2018, you can’t change people’s mind-sets,” he added. “We don’t accept the complexities, the contradictions.”

The outcry that pushed the rapper to cancel his Bataclan concerts focused on “Don’t Laïk,” which includes the line, “I put fatwas on the heads of idiots.”

Far-right activists also berated the title of a 2005 album, “Jihad,” subtitled “The Greatest Fight Is Against Oneself.” Médine said the title referred to the spiritual struggle undertaken by all practicing Muslims, and did not carry the violent connotations critics associate with the term.

“One should be able to make political rap, what we used to call ‘rap with a conscience,’ “ Médine said, adding that he had a “right to be irresponsible.”

Some French intellectuals defended him throughout the controversy, arguing that one of the most respected and well-spoken rappers in France had a rightful place at the Bataclan. Yet they were outnumbered by critics. “Médine has rightly claimed a strong affiliation to many French cultural figures, because he defends and embodies the fundamentals of that culture,” said Emmanuelle Carinos, a sociologist who studies violence in French rap. 

In interviews, and in his lyrics, Médine has compared himself to irreverent humourists and songwriters of the 20th century such as Jacques Brel, and to novelists like Victor Hugo.

“But he might have been too confident,”  Carinos said, “and not aware that many would also single out some lyrics and take the most provocative ones at face value.”

Médine grew up in Le Havre, a port city in northwestern France where he lives with his wife and three children. Médine, who is of Algerian descent, converted to Islam as a teenager. He started to rap both about the dangers of radicalisation and Islamophobia early in his career.

As Médine prepared backstage for his concert in Cergy, his bodyguard read out the latest death threat that had been flagged by the police. An anonymous writer said that even if Médine wore a bulletproof jacket onstage — he doesn’t — he would be “carried out feet first” nonetheless. The rapper seemed unfazed.“Dying on stage, isn’t it the most beautiful death ever?” Médine said. “Maybe they’ll see me as an artist at last.”

© 2018 The New York Times