Much like most countries where the inhabitants have enough money to buy the necessary equipment to use vinyl and other things to eat besides corn tortillas or red beans (goddamn poor people...), French DJs have more or less followed a similar path as above. As with other countries we also have our legendary pioneers (Dee Nasty), our DMC winners and loosers (D'jill, Pone, Crazy B, Kodh, Troubl', BNN, C2C), and our ‘all scratched album' DJs (Mr.Aul, BNN). As with other countries DMC seems to interest less and less people, and the public's average age seems to continually diminish. As with other countries the ‘fad' seems to have passed. As with other countries we tell ourselves that scratching shouldn't only serve the purpose of filling 16 bars on a rap track, but no one seems to know what it can really be used for. As with other countries, apart from Thud Rumble's, you can't earn a living by just being a fervent practitioner of scratching.

Right now, all our non-battle ambitions in France mainly rest on 3 letters and 4 playboys: BNN (Pone, Need, Crazy B and Lil' Mike), aka "Birdy Nam Nam" in homage to Peter Sellers' famous comeback in the movie "The Party". Following their DMC Team Championships win in 2002, which came through after 3 years of trying, they can now move on to other things and have decided to start working on an album which can be seen as fairly extreme being that it is all turntable based and without any typical scratch solos. So no "once again back here is the incredible, oh yeah this is funky dope beep fresh checkout my melody biatch" then.

[A funny side anecdote - their 2002 winning routine contained a feedback reworking of ‘Rollin & Scratchin' by... Daft Punk - well ok it's not funny at all...]

Someone close to Need, Laurent Burthe, was the person who gave BNN the chance to really get to work on their first tracks together. A graduate from a famous Graphic Design school, he is responsible for a book entitled ‘Scratch Graphique', where he used the visual transcription of scratches as the basis for his graphic work. After giving original graphical interpretations of all the ‘techniques' of scratch, he then transcribed over two pages a few classics of the scratch genre, as well as 4 original tracks composed by BNN and included on a CD with the book, including the very familiar and popular ‘From here to there' (ed note: anyone who hasn't heard this yet, needs to now!).

BNN have just released the first single from their forthcoming LP (which is awaiting distribution) and has already had airplay from Gilles Peterson amongst others. However even though BNN's album seems to be the most accomplished one yet to come out of France other efforts have already been made, most recently from Mr.Aul, French member of the Franco-Belgium crew La Guilde. His album seems to have a very distinctive influence reminiscent of Qbert's ‘Wave Twisters'. Another French crew, Audiomicid, also released a scratch EP, entitled ‘Edition Limited EP', with a very dark feel and electro mood. Founded in 1998, Audiomicid is a crew composed of 7 DJs and producers including Shone (Mr.Oizo's partner, signed to German label Bpitchcontrol), Kodh (DMC supremacy world champion), Low, Mogz, Dirt and Shino. Audiomicid are currently working on their new album, the first single of which was fairly disappointing in my opinion (entitled ‘Sequence 6').

Even in the French rap scene, it is rare for the DJ to be more then just a token person in the back. It's actually within a smaller section of the French rap scene, which we are not allowed to call ‘leftfield' anymore, that DJs seem to be able to flex their scratchtistic muscles best. To my knowledge a track called ‘Desinteressement Passione', by Orgasmic le Toxicologue, DJ for French group TTC, and released on their single ‘Baise les Gens' taken from their LP ‘Le Klub des Loosers', is the first instrumental all scratch track to have been put out on a French rap release. The same guy, Orgasmic, was also involved in the track ‘Beatdown' by Paraone, in which his scratches were reworked and incorporated into the music giving a result which was really unique and interesting, away from the spirit of ‘edits' such as the ones by Ricci Rucker on the track ‘Dirty Soap'. I recommend you check this track out, as well as everything else by Paraone, even if it's nothing to do with scratching.

For the more purists amongst us (or the more evolutionary reluctant ones, depending on where you choose to stand) there are also a few recent projects which focus more on the soloist aspect of scratching such as ‘Hypercut volume 1' which features the likes of Kodh, Troubl', Transformers, Moth, Matsa, Crazy B and Need. If you like DMC showcases, then grab this. For the less purist (or those least homosexual depending on where you choose to stand), I'd like to point out that Lil' Mike (BNN) is also the DJ for an artist which came out of the French version of Pop Idol. Thus we often end up seeing him live on various TV sets, with his ‘hype n roll' style doing great miming demonstrations. If you like music comedy, then grab this.

No matter what, and even if the ‘fad' has come and gone, those that have survived it are now better off and seemingly possess a different vision which has moved on from the typical scratch equals battle equals rap. Even though this typical cliché shouldn't disappear to be replaced by its opposite. We have to keep in mind that scratching is a way of making music that is still in its infancy and in the hands of somber individuals who search in their bedrooms and apartments of adulescents new ways of doing something different. Even if it's easy to be pessimistic about it, the concept of scratch music appeals to too many people for someone not to do something good with it. And if that someone can be French and have a little hair then it's even better. One last thing... France miserably failed in Euro 2004 against Greece in the second round.

Various French scratch-related releases:

-Laurent Burthe "Scratch Graphique" (Pyramid Edition)

-BNN "Jazzitathome / Too much skunk tonight / Body, Mind, Spirit" 12 inch (KIF)

-Mr Aul « D#Compoz » (Bloom records)

-Mr Aul "Pump up the bass" 12 inch (Bloom records)

-Audiomicid "Limited edition EP" (Colekt'Or)

-Audiomicid "Sequence 6" 12 inch (Collekt'Or, 2003)

-Le Klub des Loosers « Baise les gens / Poussière d'enfant / Ca va s'arranger / Desintéressement passioné » (Record maker)

-Paraone « Beatdown EP » (feat Tes, Cuizinier, Tekilatex, D'oz, Orgasmic) (Institubes)

-Hypercut Volume 1 (Logiloprod)

-Jérémy Chatelain feat Lil Mike "Vivre ça" (Mercury/Universal)

Playlist « Nique la musique de France ! » (Fonky Family) aka good French music you should check:

Serge Gainsbourg « Mélodie Nelson » (Polygram)

Taxi Girl « Cherchez le garçon » (Virgin)

IAM « L'école du micro d'argent » (Delabel)

Daft Punk « Homework » (Virgin)

Motorbass « Pansoul » (Virgin)

Alizée "j'ai pas 20 ans" (Benny Bennassi Remix) (Airplay/Universal)

TTC "Dans le club/Codéïne/ Game over 2004" 12 inch (Big Dada)

Teamtendo "WE" EP, music made using GameBoys! (Institubes)

Feadz "B&#*! run that!" (Bpitchcontrol)

Miss Kittin "I.com" (Novamute)

Guy Marchand « Destiné »

Links:

Buying French stuff

justlikehiphop.com

fnac.com

arcademode.com

waxexpress.com

Finding French hiphop articles, labels and looking for French nerds :