My Favourite French Music Videos

[Note: depending on your hardware/software configuration you might have to refresh the page after playing a couple of the videos, and I have saved the best for last so bear with me!]

The one thing I have always wondered since I transplanted myself into the Francophone world is would I have come to appreciate so many of its wonders if I still counted English as my only European language? I probably would not and that is to me a real horror, as real as the horror as all the music, literature and beautiful things in languages that I don't speak and I am missing right now. Well anyway, from the goodness of my heart, and just because I have lots of time on my hands I want to give you my top five French music videos. Art is supposedly universal, so let's test that theory. Are you touched as a non-French speaker by any of these gifts of the la langue française to the world?

5. Zaho - Kif 'n' Dir

Zaho is Algerian and lives in Canada and sings in French and Arabic. She is by far my favourite Algerian singer/composer and this clip is a risky one for a foreign audience because most of what it relays visually is tied rather abstractly to the lyrics. Kif 'n' Dir is Arabic for What Should I Do and in this song Zaho is singing as a foreigner in a new land, looking around the emotionally desolate place that she now calls home and remembering the pain of her first love, her homeland Algeria. It's a powerful song that touched me many years ago as I found myself in her homeland, longing for mine.

Favourite lyric: "I wear this mask to look like the others. A failed boy, I'm a girl unlike the others...I'm tired of pretending I am strong so I'll play dead so I don't die"

4. Céline Dion - Pour Que Tu M'aimes Encore

Céline is either loved or hated but never unknown. Some people don't know her mother tongue is French though, and some don't realise that her music in French is more heartfelt and to my mind, more meaningful, than some (not all) her English tracks. This song in English is entitled, So That You Love Me Still and sold 955 000 copies in 12 weeks and is considered by French speakers to be one of her signature songs.

Favourite lyric: I'll look for your heart if you take it somewhere else...I'll look for you in the cold, in the flame, I'll cast a spell on you so that you love me still

3. Zaho - C'est Chelou 

Another one from Zaho, just for the fun of it. This clip is funny and silly and just so Zaho. It's title means, It's Fishy and is taken from the cry of a jealous girlfriend who finds her boyfriends actions not above board. The video is more than self explanatory!

Favourite Lyric: It's fishy the way she looks at you, and what's this thing of calling you baby? Tell that b*** that I'll smack her!

2. Sexion D'Assaut - Desolé

Sexion D'Assaut are big in France. It's a group of 8 French rappers from Paris and are known and loved in France for staying away from mainstream Hip Hop and remaining close to the underground scene. Their music is hard hitting, their lyrics raw and their videos cool. This clip is entitled Sorry.

No favourite lyric for this one because any translations lose any sense of rhythm they have in French!

1. Stromae - Papaoutai

Many non-French speakers might know the Rwandan origin but Brussel's born Stromae from his 2010 hit Alors On Danse, well he is back this time with a new album and this song that just kills me everytime. Entitled Papaoutai which means 'Dad Where Are You?' It's a raw, beautiful, deeply personal song for Stromae whose father was not in his life and the video rises to the beauty of the lyrics and the fast slinging beat that mixes Congolose Rumba guitar, Electro-House and Stromae's urgent plea. The video itself is just pure art!

Favourite Lyrics:
"Dad, please tell me where you are hiding, it's been almost a thousand times I've been counting my fingers" (From hide and seek where the seeker counts their fingers waiting for the hider to say 'come look for me')

"Everyone knows how to make a baby but no one knows how to make a father."

An Open Letter To Nicolas Sarkozy

You know those things that you always come across on your Facebook, funny pics and photos that have you rushing to click 'share'. Well I stumbled across a gem of a letter the other day that I shared on my profile but the problem is it was entirely in French, a language the good majority of my Facebook contacts don't understand. So here, in part for all my Anglophone contacts, and mostly for Chris Nqoe, a very outspoken friend of mine who will understand why I so admire this letter, I reproduce it in full, and in English. Enjoy. 

The French People
Here and Elsewhere Road
99999 France

Monsieur SARKOZY Nicolas

Elysée Palace

55, Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré

75008 Paris

BAR-LE-DUC, the 7th of May 2012

RE: Spontaneous Candidature to the (Violated) Post of President of the French Republic

Mr SARKOZY, 

We would like to take the opportunity to thank you for the interest you have shown in the position (and most of all its numerous perks).

We have received your application for the continuation of your term but we regret to inform you that your profile does not at all correspond with the one that is necessary to fulfil all the requirements of this post. That is why we have come to the regrettable decision to withdraw our employment contract of which you have been a beneficiary since May 2007 (the current EU crisis has also obliged us to lay off a large number of personnel...).

We sincerely hope that you will continue to consult our future employment offers in the hope of finding a new job, we draw your attention to the numerous courses for the jobless, which we are hoping to implement in the near future, and which would allow you to become a flutist, a coppersmith or perhaps a magician (being economic sectors unaffected by the current downturn and in which you have shown considerable natural talent).

We would be very grateful if you would please leave the keys to the Elysée Palace (and those of the Airbus A330) in the vase by the front door. We however, in our infinite mercy, leave you free to dispose in any way you see fit that hideous Italian vase that is cluttering the lounge...

Nevertheless please allow us to wish you success in the pursuit of your career (you see, we also know how to lie).

Allow us, Monsieur Sarkozy, to express our highest regards to your pathetic self,

Best Regards,

The French People

Algérie Mon Amour | Algeria My Love

Today the strangest thing in the world happened. Due to an unfortunate - and technically illegal - oversight, I left Algeria without completing my documents and today I was forced to make the long trek to the Algerian embassy in Pretoria to try and sort it out. I went there braced for the worst, used as I was to the Algerian system of bureaucracy, and yet lo and behold not only did the diplomat who I talked to turn out to be completely helpful, frank and friendly we actually even chatted for a few minutes.

This led me to think that for once in my life I would dedicate an entire blog to listing my top five positives about Algeria that I encountered during my stay there. My friends who still live there will have a mouthful to say about this I predict but I assure you, once you put 8000km’s between yourself and Zinedine Zidane’s country, you cannot but help put on the rose tinted glasses as you gaze at it perched snugly on the crown of the African continent. So here goes:

5. Their ridiculous prices

Get this, tuition at any of Algeria’s universities is…wait for it…two United States dollars; yes you read that right US$2.00. (I am using the exchange rate I last encountered). The University of Johannesburg is averaging around US$4000 and the University of Cape Town I am told sits comfortably above the five grand mark. Their fuel costs a measly 20 cents a litre and a public bus in the capital will set you back a measly 15 cents but if you are university student you can hop onto the universities shuttle bus service which will cost you…fifty cents per YEAR. Hold on, what about the state of the art tram system they just installed? 20 cents.  How about in the realm of telecoms? A dollar will give you almost thirteen minutes of talk-time and heck, if you charge up your phone with ten dollars at a go, they’ll throw in eight hours talk-time free. I remember I once started a phone conversation as I was cutting up the onions for my dinner and only finished it as I sat down to a plate of steaming rice and chicken which had all been cooked whilst I talked. Where else in the world do you get that?

4. Speaking of food…

The Mediterrenean palate for me was like a trip to paradise and back, except for olives which I somehow never acquired a taste for. But if you are content to suffer those little balls of concentrated posion that even Jesus used to eat then you will be well rewarded. Where do I start? There is the ‘poulet rotti’, which is a spiced and herbed chicken put on a flaming rottiserie and left to grill on the streetside. Or the ‘shwarma’, a French loaf as long as your forearm stuffed with grilled turkey, French fries, tomatoes, onions, lettuce and generously drizzled with mayonnaise. Or couscous served with spiced chicken drowning in soup. What about a glass of Orangina to quench your thirst? What is Orangina you ask? It is the perfect balance between a fruit juice and a soft drink, hell it even has its own Wikipedia page. Or their curious habit of dressing French fries with mayonnaise and salads with vinegar (the exact opposite of how it’s done in Zimbabwe). Who was I to complain? I grew up hating sadza so an entire region where it didn’t exist was bound to leave me as pleased as punch!

3. The architecture

For the most part I will admit that Algeria is left behind when compared to South Africa in contemporary architecture but there is a certain je ne sais quoi about the way they approach the art of building anything. Let us sweep aside for a moment the architectural exceptions of my native land and that of my adopted land. Let us take an ordinary building, sitting by the corner of a busy street and housing a small boutique owned by a small family. You see it? Well back in Zimbabwe that building would almost be invariably be square or rectangular and completely functional with the government approved minimum of windows, a door and a display. Now let us imagine that family is Algerian. That building is transformed almost immediately into a testament of Franco-Islamic architecture, filigreed metal adorns the balcony that serves no other function but to exist. The eaves of the building are held up by two stone male figures that seem to come up out of the building at waist level, their naked chests daring the street with their feat of strength. Corners are softened by sculptures of leaves that seem to want to drop leaf-like into the forest of cars below. Even the Algiers Post Office has a Wikipedia column to itself, it’s a building that awed me the first time I stepped into it and trust me, Post Offices rarely do that to me (or anyone else for that matter).

2. Français

There is nothing sexier than speaking in French. Seriously the language does things to the meanings of words, it wraps them up in a cloak of culture, peppers their noses with oh just a touch of expensive eau de toilette and then sends them out to the world to give French kisses to the ears of passing listeners. The ordinary gains a level of sophistication, and the sophisticated just seduces you and leaves you on your knees screaming for more. I used to love Céline Dion (don’t pretend you don’t) even before I went to the Maghreb but when I heard her singing in French, I almost cursed the bastard who taught her English. It’s a beautiful language with a thousand and one cute idiosyncrasies, for example the eau de toilette all those perfume companies proudly stamp on their bottles simply means toilet water. Or the French for ‘I miss you’ in English literally translates to, ‘I have a lack of you’. Or their method of slapping bon which means ‘good’ to everything so that they come up with bonjour (good day), bonsoir (good evening), bon appetite (enjoy your meal), bon fête (happy holiday), bon café (enjoy your coffee), bon douche (enjoy your bath; I kid you not, people actually wish each other well even for that).

1. My friends

It is never an easy thing to uproot yourself from everything you know; your family, your language, your culture and religion and plant yourself smack in the middle of someone else’s world. But when you do pray that you have friends like the ones I encountered there. Friends who came in all different shapes, sizes and with nationalities ranging from Algerian through to Ugandan and Rwandan all the way to trusty old Zimbabwean. In a country which enjoys all the benefits I have just described and which a famous poet once described as a ‘dream of sand’, you can imagine all great moments we shared. Roasted chicken shared over a brick somehow rewired to serve as a heater, racing each other  through the university residence at 3am the night before an end of year of exam (the nerves had gotten the best of us), breaking the Ramadan fast with my friends family or almost drowning at the beach when I got caught by a rip tide. Falling asleep on one of our cross country bus tours, fighting about the colour of the wallpaper in our room, walking five kilometres in the snow because the highway was closed, making out furtively in hidden corners…my friends and my enemies, my loves and my haters made Algeria the experience that it was.