Le jeune noir à l’épée

On the occasion of its exhibition Le modèle noir, de Géricault à Matisse (‘The black model: from Géricault to Matisse’), the Musée d'Orsay in Paris has invited Abd Al Malik to produce a show.

The French poet, rapper, slam poet and essayist’s new work, produced in collaboration with the Burkinabe choreographer Salia Sanou, was inspired by a painting in the museum’s collection: Le Jeune Noir à l'épée (‘Young black boy with sword’) by Pierre Puvis de Chavanne.

Le jeune noir à l’épée is not only a show but also an album and book, with all three set to be released at the same time. Abd Al Malik set his story to music in the form of a long visual poem through collaboration with Bilal Al Aswad (composition), the late pianist Gérard Jouannest (former pianist and co-composer to Jacques Brel) and techno producer Scan X. Le Jeune Noir à l’épée is a mixture of hip-hop, literature and visual art.

Abd Al Malik on his work: ‘le jeune noir à l’épée is an artwork that really made an impact on me when I was looking into the works featured in the exhibition. In that moment I realised I wanted to write a long poem about globalisation, inspired by the poetic language of Charles Baudelaire and the philosophy of Édouard Glissant. The painting was a revelation.’

‘There it was, hanging amongst all the other 19th century masters, all those images where you see the construction of the Other and a collective racial subconscious. Out of all of them I was most struck by Le Jeune Noir à l’épée due to the simplicity of its symbolism and its representation of a black figure. The painting told an emotional story that I was already familiar with, one that took me back to a world of poverty and concrete. I then began to write about a young black man, this time in the present day, who has just come out of prison and returns to the housing estate in the banlieue where he grew up.’

‘It’s a rhythmic rebellion, shouted, rapped, slammed and sung to black music and white, old and modern. It’s also a collage of melodies and various samples, the journey of a young black man in both the past and the present, whose generation I am part of, who was born in Europe but is rooted in his ancestral continent of Africa.’