The dangerous liaisons of the hip-hop world with banditry

Following the death of a close friend of rapper SCH in a settling of scores three weeks ago, franceinfo has collected several testimonies on the links between rappers and drug traffickers who invest and launder money in record production.

On Monday, August 26, around 6 a.m., two friends of rapper SCH were in a van and were targeted by four people in a black Range Rover. The passenger was killed, shot twice in the chest, and the driver was seriously injured.

About thirty large-caliber shell casings were found a few hundred meters from a nightclub where this Marseille rapper was performing. SCH is one of the stars of rap in France. According to our information, one of the investigators’ hypotheses is that he was the target of this shooting.

This incident is not, however, an isolated one. Several rappers or people close to rappers have been victims of attempted or committed homicide in recent years. This is the case, for example, of the manager of Maes, a rapper from Seine-Saint-Denis, who was killed by a bullet to the heart on December 16, 2022.

In both cases, the investigation is ongoing and the link between organized crime and these rappers has not been established, as Diane de Condé, Maes’ lawyer, points out. “It’s easy to make the connection, but maybe this artist has nothing to do with all that. We’ll know, because the investigations will take place and in the end we’ll have the last word on the story. But it’s so recent… These kinds of connections that are being made are quite new.”

This is new, and no one wants to take the risk of speaking out officially on this subject and clearly explaining why rappers or their relatives are involved in certain cases.
It is off-mic that we therefore obtain some answers.

Here, for example, is what a judicial police investigator confided anonymously: “We have noticed for several months that there is a real porosity between drug trafficking and the rap world. It got bigger. It’s a way for drug traffickers to launder money. They finance and produce the first album of rappers and once they are known, they are indebted.”

“We have also noticed that in the organization of concerts: logistics, security, are increasingly handled by members of the drug traffickers.”

A PJ investigator

to franceinfo

This information was confirmed to franceinfo by several sources, including people involved in drug trafficking like this man who also wishes to remain anonymous.
“It’s very common in the neighborhoods. For years, at least ten years, guys who make a little money have been investing in young rappers. Rap ​​can be a very good investment.
The difference is that now the sums are much larger, rap generates a lot of money and inevitably when things go badly, it creates problems.”

This is one of the reasons why rappers pay a lot of attention to their safety. Proof of this is the documentary that rapper Maes released to promote his latest album. The rapper talks about the means he has to implement for his safety.

We see him in a big sedan followed by other cars and several security guards around him. This rapper clearly says he feels threatened. He talks about it, which is also very rare in the industry.

Producers, rappers, managers, journalists specializing in rap, franceinfo contacted multiple interlocutors but no one wanted to talk about this subject. It is in Dijon, at the first major festival dedicated solely to rap organized on the weekend of September 14 and which brought together more than 50,000 people that a man speaks out.

This is Vivien Bècle, co-founder of the Golden Coast Festival.

“There are problems like in all musical styles. If you look at the 70s or 80s, in metal or rock’n’roll, there were problems all the time and they were perhaps even more violent than today, except that today everything is taking on a pretty crazy scale.”

Vivien Bècle, co-founder of the Golden Coast Festival.

to franceinfo

“Yes, there are some who commit misconduct, even more than that,” he continues, “Today in rap you can be unknown one day, ultra-famous the next. This stuff makes people lose their cool and some artists don’t necessarily control what’s happening to them, they’re young too, a bit like in football. Mafia stories are beyond us, it’s a parallel world. I’ll take the example of the Paul Pogba affair in football, he has money, he has brothers, there are guys behind it… Who are we to judge? We don’t have all the elements.” SCH has finally spoken out for the first time on the subject in recent days by asking “not to relay false information.”