Urban arts in Toulouse-Borderouge: The musical springboard to “Style”
Urban arts were in the spotlight at the Metronum last Saturday. Hip-hop artists, rappers and dancers follow one another to confront their “styles”. “To your styles”, a joyful and festive competition, brought together an audience of amateurs and connoisseurs who came to applaud improvisations, “flow” and musicality.
Benoît and Agathe are rap fans. He is a professor of literature and history, wears a sweatshirt bearing the effigy of the “Bastard production”, a Toulouse label well known to rap fans and does not shy away from his pleasure of attending the competition: “There is good and at least not so good ”, he admits,“ but what counts is the text, the poetry ”.
The poetry, the slammer Chris TAAL crossed it like an almost spiritual shock. In her first life, this peasant girl from Béarn was a chartered accountant and lawyer in labor law. At the dawn of her 40 years, she began, she says, “to read and write”. Art is invited, imposed in her life, she speaks of fate, of chance, of something chosen larger than oneself. Since then, she has written several books, poems, made CDs, accompanied by musicians and traveled to Algeria. A little further on, three teenagers represent their breath.
They are the “Breakin Kidz”, as the red sweatshirt they wear indicates. They are there to win the hip-hop competition and they are largely up to their ambitions. “We were the 2019 French Battle of the Year champions in our category,” Mathilde soberly declares at the height of her 15 years. As confirmed by their teacher present at their side, they are hardworking and determined. They were still dancing in the afternoon, will still be on Sunday. But what their teacher especially wants to transmit are collective values, a family spirit, a spiritual fraternity around dance, this “school of life”.
This fourth edition of “To your Styles”, sponsored, among others by the town hall of Toulouse and the Ministry of Culture, made it possible, beyond the competition, to come together again for the future joyfully the collective life found around initiatives living and contemporary art.