Jok’air is releasing a new album this Friday entitled Melvin de Paris. The rapper also distributes free in schools classified REP, a comic strip inspired by his youth.
New album for the rapper Jok’air, who also distributes a comic book for educational purposes in schools classified REP, a way of reaching out in turn after having benefited from solidarity links as a child.
La BD Melvin from Paris – On zone!, with Logann Kerouasse in pencil, is broadcast with the association La Mélodie des Quartiers, which works to facilitate access to culture. Primary schools and colleges in REP (priority education network) are targeted as a priority to give 60,000 copies of this graphic novel, a tool to encourage reading, of which Jok’air enfant is the hero. Melvin is his real first name.
The “positive messages” conveyed in the boxes, such as never giving up on your dreams, “are those instilled in my education, which made me who I am today”, confides to AFP the Parisian rapper. Who has Titeuf, a famous comic book character, tattooed on his right arm.
This free distribution is a dismissal for this thirty-year-old from a disadvantaged family who “grew up with help from associations”, Restos du Cœur, Croix Rouge. Without forgetting the Swiss association Kovive which allowed him to escape from the housing estate for the time of the holidays, in the Swiss chalet of a host family.
“I’m not hiding anything”
Jok’air is one of those rappers who cultivate “the desire for a better world”, as rapper Oxmo Puccino, who had invited his younger brother to his show created at the last Printemps de Bourges, told AFP.
The comic also offers quizzes on famous figures, such as the boxer Mohamed Ali, to encourage children to learn about their history. “I hope they will do like me, I’m like that, fan of encyclopedias, today we are lucky to have the internet and our smartphones”, bounces the artist.
Melvin from Paris – On zone!sequel to a first volume Valve!, follows the wanderings of a central dark-skinned character, the family of Jok’air, born in Paris, with Ivorian roots.
“I am from a generation where there were no black superheroes, but the goal of this comic above all is to no longer see the differences”, he asserts.
In his record Melvin de Parisreleased Friday, Jok’air digs its furrow, between unvarnished self-portrait – “I hide nothing of my addictions, my fears, my failures” – and French society passed to the scanner.
Damso, Jacques Vendroux
The one whose alias was Jok’Chirac has lost none of his attraction to politics. On the cover of his previous album Sixth Republic, we saw him on a balcony, raising the arm of a fictional President of the Republic, who was none other than Assa Traoré. Activist, sister of Adama Traoré, a young black man who died in 2016 shortly after his arrest by the gendarmes after a chase.
Melvin de Paris opens this time on the title I live this melodywhich refers to the famous remarks of 1991 by Jacques Chirac, RPR mayor of Paris and future president: “the noise and the smell” of “foreign” neighbors who can drive the French worker “crazy” and had already inspired the people of Toulouse to Zebda.
“Initially, this sentence stigmatizes a community, but we appropriate it to turn the situation around,” he underlines.
“My mother, sometimes, will cook dishes with an unusual smell for my neighbor, yes, that’s us; three boys at home with aunts, cousins, yes, it makes noise, and it’s not is not a shame, we are proud of our life”.
In Everyday is Saturday“, the rapper evokes his mother, a formerly beaten woman. His album is full of prestigious guests (Damso, Laylow, Soprano) and surprises, between “You got me”, title-nod to You got me by The Roots and a vocal dedication by Jacques Vendroux, mythical voice of football on the radio (Downtown).
