The group IAM released, in December 2021, a box set of four EP titled Essential rhymes. The tour linked to this new opus has been canceled twice and then postponed to 2022. But all these projects could have fallen through because Akhenaton– his real name is Philippe Fragione -, one of the emblematic members of the rapper gang, was a victim of the Covid-19 pandemic last summer.
I am not antivax, I am anti-ce-vax
On Sunday, August 1, 2021, Akhenaton had actually been taken care of by the vital emergency department of the Timone hospital, in Marseille, for respiratory distress. A relative even mentioned pneumonia. More fear than harm for the 53-year-old artist who still refuses, as a whole, to be injected with Pfizer or Moderna. “I am not antivax, I am anti-ce-vax, he confirms in the columns of the storee Here. I would do that of the Institut Pasteur if it was possible. I prefer to listen to civil society than to professional politicians who are in a star game of upstarts even worse than others!“
If I had to be intubated, I would have opposed it
The members of the IAM group have always been firmly opposed to this anti-Covid vaccination and to the establishment of a health pass and then a vaccination pass. Last August, Akhenaton had yet passed “4 or 5 hours“in intensive care to be re-oxygenated then had remained three days under observation. But he regretted the media hysteria more than the fact of not having been vaccinated.”My so-called resuscitation made more noise than our albums, adds the father of three. That bothers me. If I had had to be intubated, I would have opposed it. I have lived long enough …“
Find Akhenaton’s interview in the magazine Ici, n ° 1779, January 7, 2022.