3 Global rhythms: the 1980s
Years of political struggle gave rise to a wealth of encounters and exchanges between different scenes of musical diaspora all over the world. Paris and London became epicentres of artistic energy, their reputations bolstered by a number of legendary venues.
In Paris, African music, which had been relatively neglected until the 1970s, now began to gain huge popularity. The French capital soon became a buzzing hub of the world music industry, supported by a lively network of record stores, labels, cafés, concert venues, nightclubs and recording studios.
In London, reggae had enjoyed huge popularity ever since Bob Marley’s first performances in the city. Hailing from Jamaica, this distinctive musical style rapidly became a global phenomenon and a symbol of liberation and rebellion. Exchanges between local and global scenes helped to redraw the musical map as well as reshaping the urban landscape: the spread of hip hop, an exciting new culture born in the Bronx, was also facilitated by the dynamic network of afro-funk night clubs and community centres.
These musical developments played a key role in making Paris and London the global cities they are today, places where original styles can emerge, find their audience and spread far and wide, inspired by rhythms from all over the world. Musicians and politicians alike capitalised on this energy to organise major events such as the parade on the Champs Elysées celebrating the bicentenary of the French Revolution in 1789, and Mandela Day at Wembley the previous year.
New ambiance
Driven by star names like Fela Kuti, Salif Keita, Youssou’N Dour or Manu Dibango, new music scenes emerged between Paris and London. Based around jazz, afrobeat and what soon came to be called “world music”, a new geography of Paris and London appeared, with its own recording, production and distribution sites. At Le Palace, legendary discotheque of Parisian nights, Grace Jones, born in Jamaica and living in Paris, performed the opening show. In London, the Electric Ballroom brought life to the heart of the Camden neighbourhood with its rock, punk and 2-Tone (music genre derived from ska) concerts. Other places, outside the capitals, played their own vital role, such as La Main Bleue in Montreuil, where representatives of SAPE (Society of ambiance creators and elegant people) were on display.
Protest counter-cultures, artistic productions linked to migratory movements, became increasingly viewed as the avant-garde. There was no longer talk of “migrations”, but rather “diasporas”, and “radical culture” became “hip culture”. The night time worlds of Paris and London were eager for these new figures who gave the two capitals their international aura, while on the cover of their albums, artists were quick to feature images of the French and British capitals.
Sono-mondiale’s utopian dream
The enthusiasm among the general public, and record companies, for these new music scenes soon caught the interest of politicians. Big protests were being organised at the time, putting the multicultural identities of Paris and London in the spotlight and helping to turn these two former Empire capitals into international metropolises.
To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, François Mitterrand chose to portray the image of a France open to the world, culminating in a big parade orchestrated by Jean-Paul Goude. In London, the concert organised as a tribute to Nelson Mandela, on June 11 1988, consecrated the London scene as a focal point for protesting all race-related injustice through music. Among the performers were artists from the Rock against Racism movement, such as Jerry Dammers, from the band The Specials. Alongside them were musicians such as Salif Keita or Youssou N’Dour, who had become star figures in these events, as well as some of the biggest names from the music world. Even Eric Clapton, despite the racist comments he had made in 1976. This demonstrates the normalisation of events of this kind in the UK, whereas the concert was banned by the South African government.
The Bicentennial of the revolution
On the occasion of the bicentennial of the French revolution, François Mitterrand decided to organise a series of events, including a big “La Marseillaise” parade, created by artist and advertising film director Jean-Paul Goude, with Wally Badarou as music director. Watched by 800 million TV viewers, the event culminated in an interpretation of La Marseillaise by the American soprano Jessye Norman, at Place de la Concorde. The parade was a huge popular success, with 800,000 people present on-site to watch this sumptuous show in which “tribes” from across the world portrayed a globalised, multicultural world. An important place was accorded to African artists, who paraded for the occasion to the sound of drums. And yet this event illustrates the dilemma of a republican model, wavering between a global and multicultural perspective and the reality of a multi-faceted France that was not always well accepted.
Mandela Day
“One humanity, one justice.” Those were the words of Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler on June 11 1988 to the crowd at a packed Wembley stadium, at the end of an 11-hour concert broadcast by the BBC and over 60 TV channels across the world, as a tribute to Nelson Mandela, who had been imprisoned since 1962. While music served the anti-apartheid cause throughout the 1980s (in 1983 the “African Sounds” concert was held at the Alexandra Palace, and in 1986 the British Artists Against Apartheid organisation attracted more than 200,000 people to a festival on Clapham Common), the Wembley “mega-concert” was also heir to the big international solidarity concerts such as Live Aid. The goal of this event, with the Thatcher government refusing to impose sanctions on South Africa, was to amplify mobilisation against apartheid by promoting Mandela to the general public through the media: far from the “terrorist” image that the authorities had attributed to him, he was the symbol of a South African people who were resisting and fighting, a concept that the London music scene would help to promote internationally.
Sono mondiale: from local to global
“Imagine, the earth is like a drum. The skin is tight all the way around. If you scratch it in Japan, the vibration can be felt to the end of the world. It’s like a huge sono (sound system)… A sono mondiale”. The term sono mondiale was invented by Patrice Van Eersel, a journalist at Actuel, in the living room of his boss, Jean-François Bizot, during a smoke-imbibed conversation with musician Ray Lema in the early 1980s. From 1981, Radio Nova promoted this music wave originating in all four corners of the planet. Later on, Bintou Simporé and his Sunday programme “Néo Géo” travelled through the least explored musical countries at a time when management of US and UK record companies were establishing the “World Music” label in an attempt to better market these productions, which couldn’t find their place on store shelves. Prolific and militant, inclusive and festive, curious and irreverent, the music of sono mondiale marked a golden age of “living together”.
Urban Sounds
When rap reached the French scene, the country had just voted the left into power. Around the same time, the punk wave was bursting out of London, heavily covered by the French specialised press, which had very little interest in New York hip-hop. At the time, rap was associated at the very most with a modulated scansion technique — “to rap” was translated into French by “baratiner”, “jacter”. In late November 1982, a few young Parisians discovered the reality of American rap when the New York City Rap performed at the Bataclan. DJs, dancers, rappers and graffiti artists displayed the freshness of their artistic mastery. The troupe was led by “beat” master Afrika Bambaataa, founder of Zulu Nation. The operation, initiated by journalist Bernard Zekri, was covered by Alain Maneval on the Europe 1 radio station. The young age of the artists and their level of involvement was in stark contrast to self-motivated professionalism. Coming from deprived neighbourhoods like the Bronx, they practised their art in the street. And on Friday nights, on the dance floor at the Roxy.
Positive, unlike punk, hip-hop laid claim to racial equality. So youth in districts with a heavy population of African descent quickly adopted this means of expression. Their role models performed on the weekly TV programme Hip-Hop on TF1. From 1984 to 1985, Sydney, a defector from Radio 7, hosted the show for 42 weeks, attracting a large and passionate audience of teenagers.
From underground Parisian scenes to the success of suburban Rap
In its early days, rap spread into certain Parisian locations gradually, in step with coverage in the media, and as that happened, it emerged from the “underground” setting, adopted in particular by young people in the working-class neighbourhoods and suburbs. Players in the rap movement were structured American-style, around the “posse”, a solidarity-based group formed within a restricted geographic area. Posses in Paris included Aktuel Force, Paris City Breakers (PCB) and Atomic, training grounds for future members of the bands Assassin, Ministère A.M.E.R. and NTM. Identification with a territory, going beyond the band phenomenon, led to recognition of the movement by politicians, local institutions, and other structures involved in popular education.
In 1989, the French branch of Zulu Nation, IZB (Incredible Zulu Boys), adapted its acronym to become “Intégration des Zones Banlieusardes” (integration of rough suburban areas). A name that was symptomatic of the interplay between hip-hop movement and institutions. Those same institutions would increase their efforts to integrate dancers and graffiti artists into contemporary creation, giving young rappers visibility, but keeping any overly subversive content at bay. As the 1990s began, rap was ready for commercialisation, at the very moment when a switch was taking place in the way this music movement was presented. Rap, laying claim to its new territorial roots, was designated as one of the media-friendly “voices” of suburban youth. Moving into the 1990s, with the authorities striving to respond to the socio-economic problems that communities living in the banlieues were facing, this artistic scene, combining dance, music and visual arts, was particularly spotlighted through the promotion of what was referred to as “urban cultures”.
The new British urban scenes
In the mid-1980s, one original music trend stood out from the other movements in fashion at the time. Acid-house, an explicit reference to a new and trendy drug, is a typically British sub-genre of house music, a form of electronic music born in the industrial wildernesses of Detroit and Chicago, in the United States. It was initially played in certain London and Manchester clubs like Trip or the famous Hacienda, then spread like wildfire thanks to Rave parties, large gatherings open to everyone, held on the outskirts of cities. During these parties, as huge as the sound system they drew inspiration from, the music was broadcast through mega sound equipment, and the DJ also played the role of host. One of the first Acid-house hits was composed by a young Briton of Jamaican origin, A Guy Called Gerald; a fan of hip-hop and house, he dreamed up new rhythms by creating “collages” of pieces of music. The song, entitled “Voodoo Ray”, went on to be one of the top sellers of 1989 in the UK. Despite heavy surveillance by the authorities and critical echoes in the media, this style became a real success and new forms emerged in the early 1990s, such as Jungle music, which drew its sources from reggae and hip-hop. Certain musicians within the House wave would attempt other musical experiments, mixing dub music, rock and Bhangra (traditional Indian music), the London band Asian Dub Foundation is one example. Alongside this basic trend, British music explored many other paths such as R’n’B, a mixture of hip-hop, soul and rhythm and blues, of which one of the star representatives was the group Soul II soul. Comprised of DJ Jazzie B and singer Caron Wheeler, the duo had many hits in the late 1980s and 1990s.