Les Poètes – Presented by Dazed
Directed by Geoff Levy Sam Sulam Featuring Anissa Essadoqui Gaiden Premier Yoshi Da Original Ahmed Koma Sasso Nes Pounta JP Manova Mokless Produced by Geoff Levy Sam Sulam Adam Araujo Edited by Ben Remetz Animation by Justin Au Sound mixing and design by Benjamin Conlon Color by Brett Wayne Price Cinematography by Geoff Levy, Sam Sulam Drone Operation by Josh Levy
Les Poètes is a short documentary unraveling the rich history of Parisian hip-hop. While it’s the genre that has been widely associated with America for the last 30 years, it’s a scene that has flourished in France. Here we are introduced to some veterans from the so-called golden age of French rap including Gaiden Premiere, Scred Connexion and JP Manova, and hear from them first hand, what sets French rap apart from the rest of the world. The resounding opinion among them is that text is central to the identity of French rap – the lyricism and poetry that is specific to the French language. Beyond questions of identity, the film also follows the matured class of French rappers as they try to find their place in a new world where the genre has been subsumed by online culture and the arrival of the “internet rapper.”