the rapper Médine recounts the journey of a migrant, who died off Calais, an echo of the drama of November 24, 2021
In his latest title Yasser, from the Child of Destiny series, the rapper Medina retraces the journey of a young migrant who perished during a crossing for England. We met him on the beach in Calais, to discuss the drama of November 24, 2021 and his commitment.
“The boat is just stalling, on the beaches of Pas-de-Calais”. In his last song from the series Destiny’s Childrapper Medina painted the portrait of a 17-year-old Sudanese who fled his country at war to join England.
Arriving in Calais, Yasser pays a smuggler but his makeshift boat capsizes. Thirty people lost their lives. A powerful text, which resonates with the drama of November 24, 2021.
Yasser spent two years on the road after fleeing his war-torn country to England to find “a woman, a roof, a job, just a little more stable life”. Through this story sung in part to the first person singular, Médine explores the different stages of his character’s forced journey: his fears, the smugglers, his crossing of the Mediterranean, his tumultuous arrival in Spain and then a train journey to Calais where he survives in a tent.
“I’m here to take my chance, to the gates of the Channel”, sings the rapper. Until the day he embarks on a makeshift boat after paying 3,000 euros to a “human trafficker”.
Among the thirty “fugitives” on the small boat, children and women. The weather is terrible. After several hours at sea, the boat capsized. “The children are crying, the mothers are screaming”. Despite the French and English cries for help which refer to the bullet, no one comes to save them.
Yasser will finally be fished out of the port of Calais, with “about thirty bodies exhumed from a bluish cemetery”.
Yasser’s story has been invented by Medina. But it resonates with the drama of November 24, 2021.
That night, 33 migrants – including 6 women including a pregnant one and several children – found themselves left to fend for themselves in the cold and dangerous waters of the Strait of Pas-de-Calais, on the borders of the English Channel and the North Sea.
Despite calls for help from the shipwrecked – transcribed in a chilling investigation by the newspaper Le Monde implicating the French rescuers – no one intervened. 27 bodies were recovered, 4 disappeared. Two young men miraculously survived after spending more than ten hours at sea.
Why did you want to highlight this drama in a song? What relationship exists between the rapper, originally from Le Havre, and the Channel? How did he document himself to tell the story of Yasser? Médine agreed to answer our questions about Calais beach. An interview transcribed in this article which will be broadcast in an exceptional program broadcast one after the deadliest shipwreck in the history of the Channel. See you this Wednesday, November 23 at 9:10 p.m. on France 3 Hauts-de-France to discover Calais, border town – 30 years of migration crisis.
Medina : “Yasser is a fictional character, inspired by several routes, itineraries, and which centralizes all the problems that a migrant may encounter on his journey.
As with all the pieces in this series called Child of Destiny, the but is to document yourself, to be as close as possible to reality.
“Yasser, it’s inspired by several stories to try to be more faithful to the problems that migrants encounter throughout their journey. There are certain parts that belong to other characters, other realities, which I have centralized in that character.”
“What struck me was that it didn’t strike me that day. In retrospect, I learned after documenting that there had been a dramatic event. I understood that on D-Day, there had been a lot of media who had relayed this shipwreck, that this story had repercussions on a lot of political subjects, that it had put a lot of important people with ties in the embarrassment, even Except that I understood it only later.
In the torrent of information that we receive individually, it is something that has gone unnoticed. I blamed myself, I started to find out, document myself. I was bruised like I think most people who discovered this information, and I’m all the more bruised today after writing a piece and going to the end of my artistic process, that this article of the world appears. I thought I had put words to a reality, but this article is even more terrible than the fiction I am telling. I am twice bruised by this story.”
Precisely, this problem of rescue which relates to the ball between English and French waters, you mention it.
“The goal is to have resonance on current issues, political subjects, but that’s not the primary goal. My goal is to have resonance, to give a different point of view , sometimes extrapolated, sometimes exaggerated to sound the alarm and position ourselves as a whistleblower.”
“The media sometimes limit themselves to making certain information heard. The goal of an artist is also sometimes to take on subjects to go a little further than the traditional channels.
It is not a plea as such but it is a piece of the puzzle which is added to the voice of certain media, to the voice of activists in the field. It’s a piece of the puzzle and it can sometimes be a relay to these people who are on the ground.”
“I have the impression that this is precisely the role of the artist: to seize dramatic stories, which sometimes pass under the radar, which are not heard by all or so certain people in their postures do not pay no attention to such matters.”
The role of the artist is to sublimate, to play with emotions, sometimes to metaphorize, to extrapolate, to bring as many people as possible to this subject to raise their awareness.
“That’s the goal. It’s not advocacy, it’s above all to make people aware of these issues and to rehumanize people who are sometimes dehumanized by the flow of information, by the fact that we are anesthetized .”
“I have love for the Channel. I grew up there (the rapper is from Le Havre, editor’s note). It’s really a place where I forged my childhood, my adolescence. Today, I can’t help but look at it nostalgically but also with a cynical, questioning gaze, telling myself that it’s been an open coffin.”
“Unfortunately, faced with the lack of resources, faced with the lack of urgent political decision-making, it will continue to be so.
When situations arise that resemble those of our grandparents who fled a place for economic reasons, political reasons, it does not leave me insensitive. It’s like an old pain that wakes up and ends up scratching you.
“This is the case of my family, this is the case of my in-laws who fled Asia for the same reasons. These are subjects that are present in my daily life. I cannot look away when I see this drama that has happened.”
“I don’t know. Above all, I know that the article in Le Monde has resonance. I have the impression that it will carry weight in the next discussions: to raise awareness of the lack of means, to untie of the misunderstanding between the British and France who relate the ball…
When we read the detail of this article, we see concretely that there is a real lack of means to fight against these tragedies.
I have the impression that this article stings to the quick, on a more emotional register that will perhaps end up reaching the spheres that it must reach to make things happen.
“I am addressing the rap public and I am trying to raise awareness on this issue. This is not a plea that will challenge politicians. They have a whole army of advisers around them who inform them on these matters.”
“It’s not up to us to do this work, it’s perhaps your role in the media. My role is to draw inspiration from your fieldwork, to transform it, to romanticize it so that it reaches the homes of those who listen to this music, who cherish it. And use this music to send a message.”
You have to understand that it’s a puzzle: me as an artist, I put a piece. You as a journalist ask one. The young person who read this interview, who hears this piece, says to himself: I should raise my awareness, how can I help? He too poses a coin.
Unfortunately, we waited for this tragedy to wake up. I hope we won’t wait for a second to do it.”
This Wednesday, November 23 – Special day on our antennas: Calais, border town – 30 years of migration crisis:
- 12/13 and 19/20: special pages with guests and testimonials
- Edition Littoral Hauts-de-France: l’Abeille Normandie – The most powerful tug in France
- 9:10 p.m.: Region surveys: Calais, border town. Testimonials, reports and exceptional guests
- 10:15 p.m. : unpublished documentary: “The Last Crossing.”