Swiss Review 1/2018

19 Swiss Review / January 2018 / No.1 Makala is one of the new stars of the Swiss hip-hop scene. His rap is the product of Geneva’s suburbs. Photo: Keystone ple from the estates are more likely to rap than those from more af- fluent parts of town”. The lyrics penned by the SuperwakClique rappers sometimes bor- row from clichés fromAmerican gangsta rap, but are not based on an ultra-violent reality. “The cover of Gun Love Fiction, Makala’s album released in 2017, shows a handgun pointed at someone’s head. It’s a vi- olent image, but also a cinematographic depiction of violence, used to discuss our society’s ills and achievements,” states the co-founder of the Colors label. The fact that rap fromFrench-speaking Switzerland is more objective means that it can be exported to France and other French-speaking countries. “These rappers are like big fish in a small pond,” says Hadrien Mauron, who occasionally bumps into artists from this scene at the McDonald’s on the corner. The political rappers French-speaking Switzerland has a history of political rap. For example, in 1993, Sens Unik, a band from Lausanne that was a key part of the emerging French hip-hop scene, shared its view of the nation in “L’île au trésor (Treasure Island)”: “Il existe une île au trésor. Un pays fantasmagorique qui n’est autre qu’un coffre fort. Où sont dissimulées des montagnes de pièces d’or coulées par des âmes sanguinaires dans les moules de la mort (There’s a treasure island. A fantasy land which is nothing but a vault. Where there are hidden mountains of gold coins cast by bloodthirsty souls in moulds of death)”. In 2003, Stress, a rapper from Lausanne, attacked the Swiss People’s Party in “Fuck Blocher”: “Ce pays si prospère a voté pour la peur. Comment un pays aussi multiculturel que la Suisse accepte au Conseil fédéral Blocher, ce raciste. Le blème, c’est que les jeunes ça les botte pas donc ils ne votent pas (This country that’s so wealthy voted for fear. How can a nation as multicultural as Switzerland elect this racist Blocher to the Federal Council. The problem is that young people don’t care, so they don’t vote)”. ers, I ain’t got no gris-gris)”, she tells us. The Valais-basedMétis artist KT Gorique, who won the world rap freestyle championships in 2012 in New York, talks about rootlessness and racism “with even greater intensity, as being a foreigner inValais is not necessarily easy”, points out the producer fromGeneva. In “Visionnocturne (Night Vision)” she says: “J’arrête quelqu’un dans la rue, une fois sur deux, j’sens sa méfiance. La Suisse ne connait pas son histoire, s’en tape de celle des autres. Vote pour chasser l’immigrant sauf s’il transpire dans un maillot. J’habite en Valley, p’t’être que c’est l’endroit parfait pour en parler. Des guerres non déclarées entre villes, villages et mêmes quartiers. T’aimes pas ton voisin, dur d’accepter l’étranger. (I feel the distrust of every other person I stop in the street. Switzerland doesn’t know its own history and doesn’t give a damn about other people’s. They voted to get rid of immigrants unless they wear a football jersey. I live in the valley which is perhaps the ideal place to talk about it. Undeclared wars between towns, villages and even dis- tricts. If you don’t love your neighbours, it’s hard to accept foreigners)”. A high number of foreigners Does this wave of rap have any specifically Swiss traits? Thibault Ei- genmann believes that it is the product of Geneva’s suburbs. He stresses that these estates do not experience the endemic problems and violence experienced by some French suburbs, which are de- scribed in French rap. However, he reveals that the families of the art- ists whose work he produces have sometimes had to fight to escape it. “Switzerland provides high-quality state education,” he says, before describing the distinctive environment of the suburbs, which have an extremely high number of foreigners. “Children whose parents speak a foreign language and who grow up in multicultural environ- ments have slightly different language and express themselves in edg- ier ways. This may be because they are not sure what they are saying, so pronouncewordsmore emphatically. I think that’s why young peo-