Rap in Nouakchott, Between Language and Aesthetics
This article examines the role of rap music as a vehicle of social change in Mauritania and particularly in its capital, Nouakchott. Through a monographic sketch of the rap movement, the author shows how Mauritanian youth invents a new relationship with politics in a society strongly influenced by the question of ethnicity. A quantitative analysis of thirty songs and a visual analysis of video clips, supplemented by a series of interviews, reveal the linguistic and aesthetic processes that make rap a social and political object that is likely to reconfigure intergenerational relations in Mauritania.