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How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

nytimes.com

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Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#131

Post by notjoemama »

thefounder wrote: post #112
prospector1065 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have something else you want to say? Because it sounds like you're just trying to allude to racism

Just been in France recently. The radio really plays only French-African music. At least 90% of the time. I don't think it's anything racist about that. It just that France changed and I think most of Europe will change as well due immigration. We will see more African, Asian and maybe middle-eastern culture.

Evidently we're not allowed to notice anything change in the event it can be perceived as being racist? How is it those people are comfortable making such a statement online? There is bias, prejudice, and bigotry before you even get to racism. Conveniently supremacy is forgotten about unless a very strong character accusation is needed. I very much dislike how these "conversations" around race relations are occurring. I think I'm just starting to not care about how others perceive whatever I say. If they can't have a conversation without immediately suspecting the other party of racism then maybe they need to stay offline.

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#132

Post by arcticbull »

sergiotapia wrote: post #120
thefounder wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just been in France recently. The radio really plays only French-African music. At least 90% of the time. I don't think it's anything racist about that. It just that France changed and I think most of Europe will change as well due immigration. We will see more African, Asian and maybe middle-eastern culture.

[flagged]

Culture is always in a state of flux. It’s not sad, it just is. I’m not sad I won’t get to see Victorian London. In the narrative arc of humanity things keep getting better, not worse.

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#133

Post by thriftwy »

sesm wrote: post #54
csdvrx wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love rap, and I've found many gems in Russian and French rap. These 2 scenes are extremely innovative! > I especially love the music coming out of Mali, Senegal and Algeria (Rai, anyone?). Yes please! Can I ask you for more suggestions, even besides Rai? In the old school, I love Magic System (Gaou), and for current hits, Aye Nakamura EDIT: I can't understand why this comment is downvoted, except maybe for politica…

Gems in Russian rap? As a native speaker I’m genuinely surprised

For all the critique that can be, Oxxxymiron is, like, the last big name in Russian music.

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#134

Post by Daishiman »

arcticbull wrote: post #118
Daishiman wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean the Russians trying to exert soft power of Europe is a thing, but over a century if French colonialism _really_ doesn't help your argument one bit.

French colonialism ended a long time ago, like in the 60s. It’s been over 60 years. [edit] The French even regularly hold referendums in COMs like New Caledonia offering to cut them loose. But the last one they had 97% voted to remain part of France. Sometimes it’s good to be a dependency of a world power. I should correct myself, New Caledonia isn’t a COM (collectivité d'outre-mer) anymore but a sui generis collecti…

The political impacts of the European powers' creation of borders and their intervention in places like Haiti remain to this day, lest you think people should just "let it go".

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#135

Post by bwb »

grecy wrote: post #33
dudul wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French people always get criticized for not understanding foreigners' broken French. It is not out of malice. It is because it actually is very hard to understand broken French. A lot of very different words sound similar. A very simple grammatical mistake can completely change the meaning of a sentence. And yeah, it's probably kind of the same in English, but French is not the linga franca English is today (see what…

> People weren't correcting you to mock you. They wanted to understand and probably help you No. In France they openly showed their disgust at my French and refused even to speak to me.

That is very weird, I've spent a few months in France almost every year for the last 8 years and never had one bad experience. My wife speaks beginner French and not had any issues either. I know enough to order, please, thank you, nicely ask if they speak english, etc…

Was this one situation or multiple? What was the context?

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#136

Post by cgio »

arcticbull wrote: post #118
Daishiman wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean the Russians trying to exert soft power of Europe is a thing, but over a century if French colonialism _really_ doesn't help your argument one bit.

French colonialism ended a long time ago, like in the 60s. It’s been over 60 years. [edit] The French even regularly hold referendums in COMs like New Caledonia offering to cut them loose. But the last one they had 97% voted to remain part of France. Sometimes it’s good to be a dependency of a world power. I should correct myself, New Caledonia isn’t a COM (collectivité d'outre-mer) anymore but a sui generis collecti…

60 years is not long in discussions of historical nature. You routinely see countries hating each other for something that happened >200years ago.

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#137

Post by mytailorisrich »

csdvrx wrote: post #14
taimurkazmi wrote: post #5

You're find this out now? After four centuries of Spanish in the Americas, Spanish speakers there have developed an enormous culture and diversity and innovation in the language. I remind my Spanish friends that there are three times the number of Spanish speakers in Mexico than in Spain. In fact, there are more Spanish speakers in the United States there are more Spanish speakers than in Spain. Ditto for Portuguese,…

I love rap, and I've found many gems in Russian and French rap. These 2 scenes are extremely innovative! > I especially love the music coming out of Mali, Senegal and Algeria (Rai, anyone?). Yes please! Can I ask you for more suggestions, even besides Rai? In the old school, I love Magic System (Gaou), and for current hits, Aye Nakamura EDIT: I can't understand why this comment is downvoted, except maybe for politica…

For those learning French I would strongly advise against learning/copying too much from singers like Aya Nakamura. At least do be aware of the kind of language this is.

Otherwise it'd be like learning English with Easy E before a business trip to a London law firm.

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#139

Post by arcticbull »

Daishiman wrote: post #134
arcticbull wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French colonialism ended a long time ago, like in the 60s. It’s been over 60 years. [edit] The French even regularly hold referendums in COMs like New Caledonia offering to cut them loose. But the last one they had 97% voted to remain part of France. Sometimes it’s good to be a dependency of a world power. I should correct myself, New Caledonia isn’t a COM (collectivité d'outre-mer) anymore but a sui generis collecti…

The political impacts of the European powers' creation of borders and their intervention in places like Haiti remain to this day, lest you think people should just "let it go".

Nobody's going to deny that the impacts of past actions continue into the present and the reasonably anticipated future. That's not the claim I'm making. I claimed that France hasn't had colonialist ambitions or policies in 60+ years. You mentioned a 'century of colonialism' - I'm pointing out that it ended more than half a century ago.

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#140

Post by yawboakye »

sergiotapia wrote: post #120
thefounder wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just been in France recently. The radio really plays only French-African music. At least 90% of the time. I don't think it's anything racist about that. It just that France changed and I think most of Europe will change as well due immigration. We will see more African, Asian and maybe middle-eastern culture.

[flagged]

i haven’t ever visited abidjan proper. the people don’t even speak their native language. some are ashantis but can’t speak a word of twi. if you weep for a fabled paris, i weep for abidjan. and i weep for algiers too.
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