MC Solaar's genuine story
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In “Leve-Toi et Rap” MC Solaar (Claude Honoré M’Barali) paints a detailed picture of his life and experience of France as a black man of African roots. He explains how his mother enforced his focus in school. “My mother cleans hospitals/She knows that knowledge will be my only ally” “Then I spent days in libraries”. Growing up in France, he explains what it was like “At that time in the middle of Paris there were skinheads” “Get me into a gang? Are you crazy or wack?” M’Barali is wary of the violence and hate he sees around him. “Then trip to Egypt, French School of Cairo/To perfect my flow and my vocabulary/There I learned humility, the fear of cartridges/Pure sniper style camouflage paw-mouche" “Mafia movies made me suspicious” He also criticizes the bravado and showmanship he sees in his life contrary to some themes of hip-hop culture “I walk low profile, don't show off any jewelry/"You're worth more than a brand" Mamadou told me.”
Throughout this song MC Solaar is critical of the culture around him that promotes materialism, violence, and racism. He finds his own confidence in his own quirks and unique style “They held a grudge against me because I had what they wanted/A style that was my own and the verb in the perfect tense.” Ultimately, he takes pride in the things that define his life like his education, his vocabulary, his flow, and his humility. At Solaar’s time, Paris was experiencing racial violence, which proved directly dangerous to him as a Senegalese immigrant of a working family. His genuine interest in learning both in his education but also as a human being helped to inform him of his worldview at a time when he didn’t always feel at home.
Growing up in a place that often threatened his individuality, MC Solaar finds solace in his talent to make music “Maybe because one day Jesus told me: ‘go ahead get up and rap.”