La chanson bâtarde de Stromae et Abd al Malik : Belgique, Afrique et francophonie

Abstract

Since its beginnings, French chanson has been full of mixed musical influences. Two present-day French singers, Abd Al Malik and Stromae, preserve this tradition and renew it at the same time. While singing about ‘elsewhere’ used to be a pretext for exoticism with commercial intentions, these two singers symbolise a generation where human mixity has become a major reality, which can also be observed in their songs. When Abd Al Malik, for instance, uses the pattern and inspiration of Jacques Brel’s “Amsterdam” for his own song “Gibraltar”, he changes both meaning and dynamics of the original song. Amsterdam’s port is a tearing dead end ; Abd Al Malik’s port is a place of transfiguration where you can ‘sublimize’ yourself and transform travelling into a productive initiation. On the same level, Stromae, metis and orphan himself, succeeds in sublimizing his pain in a dynamic danse with its success “Papaoutai” ; and he also succeeds in doing so in his song “Bâtard”, a true art poetique, where thanks to his own maestro’s abilities he presents hybridity as riches to be shared.