French hip hop

Most French hip hop artists come from poor suburbs of Paris, Strasbourg, Toulouse or Marseille. Unlike the blacks living in urban ghettos in the United States, where hip hop began, France has had a much wider social safety net, meaning that poverty was rarely as extreme in France's North and West African immigrant communities (where most of the artists come from) as in African American ghettos.

Some of France's most important hip hop crews:

IAM (Marseille) featuring members with (North) African, French and Hispano-Italian roots. Inspired by East Coast rap.

Suprême NTM(Paris) featuring members with Caribbean and French roots. Inspired by East Coast (hardcore) rap.

NAP[?] (Strasbourg) featuring with African and Caribbean roots.

La Cliqua (Paris) featuring Rocca, bilingual rapper with Columbian roots.

KDD[?] (Toulouse) hardcore

Manau[?] (Bretagne) rather commercial group mixing hip hop with Celtic music.

MC Solaar considered as commercial by some. It sucedeed writing rap songs with a strong "Chanson Francaise" influence his lyric style has been compared to Serge Gainsbourg.

The majority of French rappers are really from Africa. Even though DJ Dee Nasty became the pioneer of Hip-Hop in France during the early 1980s, immigrants from Africa dominated the music scene as well. Due to the former French rule and the colonial, Africans immigrants moved to France for education or better life. M.C. Solaar, from Senegal moved to France around the late 1980s and released his first CD in 1991. More African emcees included ...

  Storm Bugsy (Cape Verde)                  Red One (Morocco)

 
  Le Specialist (Madagascar)                Bissao na Bissao
                                           (Democratic Republic of
  INTIK (Algeria)                          the Congo/Republic of
                                            Congo)
  Bidew n Bess (Senegal)

  Taj Kul B (Morocco)                       M.A.M. (Cote d' Ivorie)

  Kaysha (Democratic Republic of the Congo)

  Tana-Cergy (Madagascar)

  Hip-Hop groups from Africa also tour in France and all over Europe.