2024-01-02 19:49:42
Book. What if music found the best witness to its history in the law? This is, in any case, Fabrice Epstein’s bet. Already author of Rock’n’roll justice (La Manufacture de livres, 2021), business lawyer and magazine columnist Rock & Folk recurrence with, this time, Black Music Justice. A legal history of black music (The Book Manufacture, 360 pages, 27 euros). In sixty-one chapters, a little over 350 glossy pages and a playlist of fifty tracks, Epstein takes the reader on a journey from the 1930s to the present day. It explores all the musical subgenres of this « black music » : blues, funk, rock, rap, reggae, soul… The principle is the same as in the previous opus: “It is a great history of black music, through its legal encounters, its political and financial battles, its moral demands, its family disputes, its presumed dissolute morals, that this book strives to tell”explains the author in the introduction.
This fascinating book speaks both of forgotten or little-known figures like Mississippi John Hurt – whose descendants will compete for the inheritance – as well as superstars like Michael Jackson, George Clinton, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown or the Rolling Stones, who will have to face the courts for stories about copyright, plagiarism or drugs.
Rap is obviously not forgotten, but, contrary to popular belief, it only occupies a minor part of the book. Despite everything, we will focus on the case of Snoop Dogg, accused of complicity in murder. He and the main perpetrator, his bodyguard, will be released.
White people rub shoulders with black people
Fabrice Epstein also discusses the legal troubles of French rappers, both Suprême NTM and the Ministry AMER for their anti-police texts and Orelsan. In question, for the latter: several lyrics from his first songs – in particular His stench – which led to several concert cancellations and the mobilization of feminist associations.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers “Rap is a robbery of the language, it’s poetry that can be listened to”: how rappers are waking up French
The case of MC Solaar is also mentioned: a good part of the repertoire of the singer from Val-de-Marne, although an eminently respected figure in rap in the 1990s for his literary and highly referenced texts, did not exist until recently on the streaming platforms. For a long time, it was therefore impossible for a nostalgic forty-something to listen Caroline or Aftereffects. The reason ? A conflict between the singer and his producer Polygram, at the origin of a complex dispute which proved “Claude MC” right, but the consequence of which was the impossibility of exploiting his first three albums. Fortunately, an agreement was reached, and Solaar’s old songs are now available.
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