The controversy did not cease to swell throughout the weekend, until it invaded the political field. Friday evening, rapper Soso Maness closed the first evening of the Fête de l'Humanité, an unmissable annual meeting of the French left. On the big stage, the Marseillais first criticized the film
Bac Nord
, a film recovered in particular from the National Gathering. Before inviting the public to chant: “
Everyone hates the police!
A song regularly heard in demonstrations. If the controversy has grown to such an extent, it is above all because of the far from trivial place where it was sung - the feast of Humanity, but also by the new popularity of the rapper.
Born Sofien Hakim Manessour in 1987 in Marseille, he grew up in the city of Font-Vert, in the 14th arrondissement of Marseille.
This poor neighborhood plagued by drug trafficking regularly makes the headlines in the local press for its settling of scores and social problems.
The rapper himself makes several trips to prison, in particular for possession and sale of narcotics.
Growing success
He started rap at the age of 12, trying his hand at rhymes with his friends. If his interest in music remains secondary for a long time, he really gets involved in rap during his twenties and breaks through late. His first album
Rescapé was
released on March 22, 2019. A year later, he returned with his album
Mistral
, on June 5, 2020. It is the album of success for him, carried by titles such as
Soso Maness.
In August of the same year, the Marseillais rocked into a new dimension with
Bande Organisée
, the first single from the Marseille rapper collective 13'Organisé. 342 million views on Youtube to date, almost 150 million plays on Spotify, and eleven consecutive weeks at the top of the Top Singles in France. The song is one of the biggest hits in recent memory in France, and Soso Maness is headlining it, with his friends Jul, SCH and Naps in particular.
More recently, his title
Petrouchka
, in a duet with PLK, has also met with immense success, once again reaching first place in the ranking of singles. However, success has never prevented the rapper from asserting his political positions. He mentioned in particular the fate of migrants in his song
Bilal
.
On the titles
Interlude
or
Fuck Up,
he was already rapping on the police. In an interview with
La Provence
in 2020, the rapper clarified his ambivalent position vis-à-vis the police. “
I have seen the injustices of the police since I was little. (...) As a rapper, I have to tell the story, to get the message across. It's real. I relate the truth. Afterwards, I repeat, I'm just as rotten as one of those guys from BAC Nord. I think the problem is deeper than racism: the training is poorly done, we train police officers on the chain,
”he explained. Adding that the police are gangrened by the extreme right. "
Some put on the costume of a police officer to pour out their hatred and their extreme right-wing impulses.
Every week too, there is a police officer who commits suicide.
This is to say that there is a problem.
The solution is not in violence, anyway.
Again, there are some very good police officers.
We must not put everyone in the same bag.
It is just that these extreme right-wing groups emerge, that we truly punish the abuses and that we better train the police.
"
Politicians get involved
The videos of the concert quickly made people talk on social networks, and several politicians were keen to react. First of all the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, who in a tweet this Sunday condemned the words of Soso Maness, urging the left parties to do the same:
On the left precisely, several politicians reacted. The PCF presidential candidate Fabien Roussel defended the police: "
I defend them so much that I cannot support such remarks."
Adrien Quatennens denounced him a controversy of "
low floor
", which he considers "
at the height of M.Darmanin
". "
Nobody imagines that Brassens, Brel or others would have been forbidden to have had sometimes provocative remarks
"
,
estimated the deputy La France Insoumise du Nord
.
Before specifying: "
I do not take on my account the fact of saying everyone hates the police, we never shouted it in demonstration.
As for Soso Maness, he has so far not reacted to the controversy.