Directed by Geoff Sean Levy
Les Poètes – Presented by Dazed
Directed by
Geoff Levy
Sam Sulam
Featuring
Anissa Essadoqui
Gaiden Premier
Yoshi Da Original
Ahmed Koma
Sasso
Nes Pounta
JP Manova
Mokless
Produced by
Geoff Levy
Sam Sulam
Adam Araujo
Edited by Ben Remetz
Animation by Justin Au
Sound mixing and design by Benjamin Conlon
Color by Brett Wayne Price
Cinematography by Geoff Levy, Sam Sulam
Drone Operation by Josh Levy
Les Poètes is a short documentary unraveling the rich history of Parisian hip-hop. While it’s the genre that has been widely associated with America for the last 30 years, it’s a scene that has flourished in France. Here we are introduced to some veterans from the so-called golden age of French rap including Gaiden Premiere, Scred Connexion and JP Manova, and hear from them first hand, what sets French rap apart from the rest of the world. The resounding opinion among them is that text is central to the identity of French rap – the lyricism and poetry that is specific to the French language. Beyond questions of identity, the film also follows the matured class of French rappers as they try to find their place in a new world where the genre has been subsumed by online culture and the arrival of the “internet rapper.”