The song between Mossad news and KGB memories

Popular music artists often talk about spies and their secret actions, but it is more often with fantasy than with great historical precision.

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"Mr Commissioner" at the KGB National Headquarters. (Illustration) (THEPALMER / ROBERTO A SANCHEZ / E+ / GETTY IMAGES)

We have rarely had the impression that the reality of the work of the secret services goes beyond the scenarios of James Bond films, with the operation of trapping thousands of electronic communication devices carried by Hezbollah fighters.

An operation which, most certainly, will enter the legend of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence and special operations service. And it’s when we listen to rap that we hear about it – here between 2004 and 2016. It’s the threat of being observed in an indiscreet way at the Fonky Family, it’s a geopolitical reality of confrontation with a terrorist group at T.Killa featuring at Lino, it is one threat among others in an almost psychiatric delirium of Despo Rutti.

In the first episode of These songs that make the news this weekend you hear excerpts from:

John Barry Seven and orchestra, James Bond Theme, 1962

Fonky Family, An eye on us, 2004

Lino feat. T.Killa, Don’t call me rapper anymore, 2014

Despo Rutti, Abba, 2016

Viktor Lazlo, Mata Hari, 1985

Caracol, She whom men cry (Mata Hari), 2008

Pierre Bernac (Poulenc on piano), The Spy, 1961

Joseph Edgar, Russian spy, 2014

Louis Chedid, Zap-zap, 1990

Alain Souchon, Billy loves me, 1983

Eddie Mitchell, Choo choo boogie fake spy, 1975

Zazie, James Bond and I, 2005

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