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Mohamed Bourouissa on France’s identity crisis: ‘We’ve got catching up to do!’

12:32 AM

The French Algerian artist uses photography, rap music and the frequencies of trees in his quest to shine a light on marginalised communities. Now he’s preparing for his first solo UK show

In early 2020, when Dave was making British history by triumphing at both the Brits and Mercury music prizes, the equivalent awards in France were making headlines for all the wrong reasons. That year’s Victoires de la Musique featured no headline prizes for a black or Arab rapper. “Domestic rap has become the soundtrack to a national identity crisis,” claimed one critic in this newspaper. Where the UK rapper was crowned for his celebration of black Britishness, French hip-hop was still fighting for the right to be seen as French at all.

It is a crisis that rising contemporary art star Mohamed Bourouissa knows from the inside. As he drily puts it: “France has got some catching up to do.”

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3wYQVLX

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