It’s always a tricky exercise to decide what to ask a national treasure. Especially one who has been sitting on top of the French hip-hop scene and music industry for a quarter century. Lyricist extraordinaire, athletic aesthete, charismatic bigmouth, Booba, born Elie Yaffa, boasts gold, platinum and diamond plaques for songs released in four different decades and has announced that his latest album, “Ultra”, would be his last. The former Lunatic frontman returns for what could be the most anticipated farewell tour in the history of French music. The announcement of his farewell concert at Stade de France in September 2022 sent his hardcore fans – nicknamed the “pirates”, à la “Bey-hive” - in a state of online hysteria, pushing them to purchase two thirds of the 75,000-seater in a matter of days, while the album itself achieved platinum status on the French charts in mere weeks, producing five gold singles and one diamond song.
We meet at our photoshoot, during a damp Fall afternoon, set at an extravagant seventeenth century castle, 40 kilometers South-West of Paris. The weather is chilly, but the atmosphere is warm. Booba smirks for the cameras, jokes with stylists and security while making remarks to the photographer with the heightened awareness and sharp eyes of someone whose portraits have been taken regularly since the mid-nineties, and who is fully aware of the perception everyone has of him. Although he’s about to turn 45 years-old in December, you wouldn’t doubt him if he claimed to be over 30. Dressed in all-black, the goon-like figure would intimidate, but the familiarity of his face makes it more intriguing then fearsome. No one stares when we speak, but everyone is watching. He is still emotional about the Stade de France news.
“I was not expecting this, and even though it’s not sold out yet… I knew we could fill it up, but I didn’t think it would be this quick. My name, the venue, and a date, I was not expecting at all for people to show this much energy and this kind of love before we even started promoting the event properly. It really touched me.” His voice betrays the emotion of someone who has been dominating so long but might not have fully grasped that his status is still as high as ever, in the Pantheon (name of his second full-length album) of French artists. “I’m very much a down-to-earth kind of a man. Between thinking about it, believing you can achieve it, and actually seeing it happen are three different things. This reminds you of how much you’re in sync with your audience...” Rare moments of public introspection for the leader of the Pirates, whose moniker of “Duc de Boulogne” (The Duke of Boulogne) rarely lets us peep into the personality of a man who is very much humbled and overwhelmed by the waves of love he has received lately. “It’s like playing in the final of the Champions League or fighting for the WBC heavyweight Champion’s belt against Mike Tyson. It doesn’t mean you’ve won either, but it means that you’ve worked yourself up to reach that level.” The consummate athlete that he is appreciates the magnitude of filling up the Stadium the French National football team calls home. Not an easy feat for someone whose hyper-realistic lyrics, corrosive public persona and defiant demeanor turned him into the antihero of rap for many.
So much so that Booba decided to leave Paris and set his pirate ship in Miami more than a decade ago. “Whether I was going to make it in music or not, it was inevitable that I would leave this country. Miami feels like a great tavern of pirates (laughs) with all types of people gathering there. The entire city has a different feel and mentality. It’s very Cuban-influenced, tons of Haitians, the first language is Spanish… I’m happy being in an environment that’s void of judgement.” While the choice of Miami might have raised eyebrows, it all makes perfect sense for someone such as Booba who has never given too much credence to any flag. “Those don’t matter. I don’t care about a specific language or flag. My kids are American, they speak English and Spanish. I’m more attached to people and places I have felt home than to some notion of belonging with people just because we share a passport. I don’t believe in passports nor in borders.” Like many heroes of French society such as Thierry Henry and Zinedine Zidane, or the one he’s been most compared to, Nicolas Anelka, Booba feels at home far away from where he grew up, and the race-baiting articles that is often synonymous with his name.
Aside from the music headlines he confiscates without fail after every new single, Booba has made the headlines for stories that fit the résumé of any gangster-rapper. He’s been in and out of prison as a teenager, allegedly let shots off inside a club, was shot at multiple times, threw a Jack Daniels bottle to an insulting audience member in that very same Stade de France, saw his mother and brother be kidnapped the week his third album, “Ouest Side” came out. But the most recent incident that put Booba back in prison involved him publicly fighting his former protégé and current rap heavyweight, Kaaris. The two men had been exchanging insults and verbal threats over social media - and on wax - when they met at Orly airport in the South of Paris, where they both were scheduled to travel to Morocco. The very graphic fight saw two crews of men destroying parts of the airport in front of witnesses. Needless to say, none of them managed to get on the flight. Both men were incarcerated for weeks and continued to trade jabs as an MMA fight was organized and promoted until authorities canceled the bout, fearing off-octagon violence. Remembering the period, Booba boisterously laughs “Call me ‘Bully the Kid’ (laughs). It’s like I’m on a schoolyard. If I don’t like you for any reason, I take some malicious delight in pushing your buttons. And it’s a tough situation for them because I’m funny and relentless when I tease them. And since most rappers operate with ego, they always tend to respond, which is a mistake.”
When I ask him about the parallels between him and Napoleon, another war chief who exiled himself from France to come back and rule, the Duc acquiesces but becomes infinitely more engaged when I compare his style of teasing to that of Vladimir Putin, the only politician he wants to share a conversation with. “There is something about that guy. He’s like an emperor. He’s determined, accomplished, his behavior is perfect. Smart, black-belt, chief of the secret service, with a scary aura, he gathers a lot of things I admire. I feel like I already know him. I think we’re similar in the way we view many things.” One of the things we highlight is Booba’s noticeable nihilism when it comes to his bleak views on the world, a humorously pessimistic perspective, paired with a staunch approach to loyalty and trust, doubled with a gratitude for the craft that he feels many are not upholding.
One of the many reasons Booba is still capable of giving a “stimulus package” to young artists he champions is that he never ceases to improve on his style and subject matter. “Surviving is adapting. I’ve always been about transmission. And one of the things I like doing is updating my software regularly, reformatting my hard drive and being aware. I am very competitive, and I like to help others like me win their way” The owner of three music labels (7Corp, Piraterie Music and 92i), Booba wants to change the way music is consumed in France. He wants to level the playing field and is about to launch his own app “Ultra Radio” with his Dj and artistic partner Kyu Steed. Booba and Kyu come from the same department but different cities, Boulogne for the former and Suresnes for Kyu “Everything started with a playlist that existed on all streaming platforms. But we wanted to build a more organic system and give artists that are not yet within the music industry the opportunity to have their art heard all over the world. We want to get an MP3 from an artist in Cote d’Ivoire and 5 minutes later put it into rotation without having to clear it with platforms and such.” Africa is obviously a topic of discussion between the two Parisians who are respectively of Senegalese and Congolese descent. Booba launched 92i Africa during the pandemic and is fully committed to helping artists from francophone Africa break into the European market without having to jump on a boat and risk their lives in the desert or the Mediterranean.
“Africa is filled with resources” Kyu adds “natural or human resources. When a right-handed guitar player learns on a lefty’s guitar, incredible creation happens. We’ve had the talent but lacked information and structures of distribution. Look at our forefathers like Fela, Manu Dibango etc… The new generation is reaching incredible heights because their work is finally distributed on the same channels Western artists are. We’re helping that become a reality for more artists”
As the day wanes, everyone finishes the shoot with a very clear understanding of the mission at Bay. This will be the introduction to the next chapter of Booba’s career. That of the patriarch introducing a new generation of artists, each more talented than the next. He won’t fight one combat too many. He will be sailing into the sunset wearing the belt. Ten albums in, and twenty-five years into it, Booba calls it a career.
