Sarkozy insult returns as French rap hit

You might remember the singer who made a splash by setting to music the "come back" text message that Nicolas Sarkozy may have sent to Cécilia, his ex-wife. Now a young musician from Lorraine has scored with a video in which he raps to Sarko's notorious insult: Casse Toi Pauvre Con

The President used the line in February to put down a man who refused to shake his hand at the Paris agriculture show. We had an argument here about the English equivalent, which is something like "Piss off, jerk" or "Get lost, wanker".

Sarko would prefer to forget it, but his flash of unpresidential temper became one of the milestones of his first year. As well as being repeated often on television, it has been watched over five million times on video sites.

This spoof song, by a 25-year-old video technician who uses the name Tum Sally, is crude, but it has created such a buzz that the mainstream media have picked it up and a Paris record label his given him a contract.

The lyrics, in pseudo-ghetto language, pick up the usual anti-Sarko references.

If you cut sheep's throats in your bathtub...If you don't like the Americans... If you don't fancy me, do like Cécilia and Martinon -- Casse-toi pauvre con.

(Notes: Sarko has played to anti-immigrant feeling by criticising Muslim families who sacrifice sheep at home. David Martinon was the presidential spokesman who was sacked after bungling a town council election and being betrayed by Jean Sarkozy, who is seen in the clip with him).

The name Tum Sally is a phonetic version of Tu me salis, (You dirty me) the words from the farm show man that prompted Sarko's invective. The singer says that he has been taken aback by the success around his clip, which is one of a multitude of home-made Sarkozy satires circulating on the internet.

"I wrote the music and put it together in a few hours without much equipment in my flat in Metz," he said. After Cyber Productions, an independent label, signed him up for a single release, he produced another video for the B Side. It's called J'ai Changé (I've changed), another famous Sarkozy quote. Here it is.

Tum Sally - J'ai changé sélectionné dans Musique et Clips

Comments

[razatork]

I would like to thank this young man for reminding me why i voted for sarkozy last year.
The left is so braindead and hysterical that many of them actually believe what this guy said and show in this clip (like the poster with "votez le pen" and sarkozy's picture/ his alleged racism, and the latant anti-americanism to name a few).

Now there's a lot of things i don't like about sarkozy, but i sure as hell wouldn't want to see those delusional idiots(aka the left) at the head of the country.

Now lyrics aside, these songs are just really bad, you have to really hate sarkozy to find anything appealing here.

As a side note Obama should be very careful, some in his campaign are playing exactly the same tune and that's a perfect repellent for centrists like me.

[Joan Arles]

I agree with Razatork. This stuff is the usual banlieue anti-Sarko cliche. I heard them playing it on the radio this morning. It would make me vote Sarko too.

[Juliette]

C'est plutôt la chanson qui est conne, pas Sarkozy. C'est drôle comme l'internet crée des phénomènes qui ne valent pas grand chose.

[richard jones]

Rap is crap

[dada]

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=C7OVAVgIKQc

[dada]

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=uwOV7w1jiWE

[dada]

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=w0JRj5vno24

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=Neu9kCYlxyU&feature=related

[rocket]

What to my surprise did I see on my way to work today but a poster for this week's Express cover titled

Pourquoi ils se detestent

with picture of Sarkozy and Fillon

http://tiny.cc/Hg5JP

(Tinyurl now directs you to their page and then redirects (that s*cks)

Even l'Express has jumped on the bandwagon.

As the Chinese say

"May you live in Interesting times".

Some things are changing in France

[dada]

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=_maHxWHQ1MI

[Ros]

A blog like this is just a waste of your time, Charles, (not ours as we don't have to read it if we don't care to!

[dot king]

DADA, je pense que vous devez être français(e)?
J'ai regardé tous vos clips et j'ai écouté avec grand plaisir la musique, merci. (J'ai vu le grand Bob Marley dans un de ses derniers concerts en Angleterre, un souvenir qui n'est pas prêt à me quitter, et ça fait plaisir de voir qu'il y a d'autres qui suivent avec fidelité et sans "sell-out").
Je n'ai pas trop compris ce que vous essayez de nous dire avec ces clips, si ce n'est pas simplement de contraster la bonne et la mauvaise.
Mais encore avec un pseudo comme DADA, est-ce qu'il y a quelque chose a comprendre?
Vous ne mettez presque jamais de commentaire, je ne suis peut-être pas la/le seul(e) à vouloir en savoir plus. Parlez-nous SVP.

[paparuga]

Hello,

Razatork, I am still amazed to see that some people speak about Sarkozy's ALLEGED racism... Have you heard the speech of Dakar ? Have you heard his comments about colonization during the 2007 campaign ? ("colonization was a dream of civilization rather than conquest" and so on... he could have read Aimé Cesaire rather than going the burial, at least). Have you seen the profile of some of his close and longtime political friends or advisors : Patrick Devedjan, Patrick Buisson are the first who come to my mind and they have indeed a very marked cursus on the extreme right (the book of Buisson about "the french resistance in algeria" is very revealing). Sarkozy is racist, despising (scum, "casse toi pauvre con",..) and nationalist in the worse way : revisiting the 8th may, the "eternal france" (which was not Vichy ... of course...when I hear of children from illegal immigrants arrested in schools (with reported case of handcuffs for child aged 4) it could be almost funny), brainless political manipulation of history (the letter of Guy Moquet, schoolboys and -girls sponsoring a jewish child victim of the Shoah..). For me Sarkozy is the subject of a personnal regular shame ... and despair, especially when I read comments like yours, razatork.

I have lived all my childhood in "les banlieues". Even today - i have left the suburbs since 10 years, when I see a policeman, I change of pavement, because my first intinctive feeling is to be afraid and I can not control it (not all persons react like this, but some do, and not just a few in the suburbs...). The eventually (because Sarkozy may have ambiguous attitudes) racist and despising attitude of Sarkozy towards some people in the suburbs, some politics he is implementing (specially the accent put on security and the incessant identity checkings ... of rather young... and black people (even if coulour is not part of offical directives..at least not formulated like this, but Sarkozy doesn't seem very energetic to discourage such practices); and the fact that, in "affairs" between police and persons from the suburbs, and - this is revealing - BEFORE the inquiry even began, the police is very often cleared from charges by the head of the states (this is often the first political declaration), which means by the way an indirect accusation towards people from the suburbs), is doing much dammage to an already diffiult situation.

Moreover, I don't value Sarkozy's abilities... he may be competing with Segolene Royal and her "gaffes" and incompetence. (The last one in date was when, in his last speech on television, he confuses naturalization and regularization...)

Obviously some people are proud of this guy,..... we may at least have a modernized society, economy, institutions thanks to him, no?! Why caring about the fact that he is racist, nationalist and reactionnary ? It will sound provactive, but some should just think about it : Hitler was very good at putting german economy back on the rails, would you tolerate everything he said just because "economy is more important", would you elect him ? Of course Sarkozy isn't Hitler, but these are indeed other times, and I think we are politically tolerating too much things, just because he is supposed to be the only man able to reform France. How far should we go in the tolerance with such behaviour ? I am no against reforms and changing things, but I may be afraid sometimes of what "ideology" and "vision of society" may be hiding behing some reforms proposed in the heads of our ruling classes, even when I eventually formally agree with them on the paper ... and given the profile of Sarkozy, i am not at all reassured....

[azloon]

Well, i think we just saw the beginning and end of a career in the music business (M. Sally's talent is obviously underwhelming).

but this is satire, folks (lame as it may be), not political rhetoric.

at least we have a young frenchman demonstrating entrepreneurial skills, and not marching in the streets demanding his weekly governmental ration of fois gras.

si, un chapeau a lui (Daniel, do i have that expression right?)

and CB, as i've implored you before, don't let the super-serious among us dissuade you from your 'pop culture' offerings. if we turned this blog over the 'wonks,' it would be insufferably sleep-inducing, especially after the 25th rebuttal to the 24th reassertion of 'truth').

so, in that vein, did you hear the one about the successful business executive who says he was born into such poverty that if he hadn't been born a boy, he wouldn't have had anything to play with?

[razatork]

Well this is dumb really, if you grew up in la banlieu (so did i btw "9-2 riprizent") like you said you should know that racaille is nothing racist.

Une racaille c'est un petit con qui fout la merde, par la violence les incivilités et la criminalité. La race n'a rien a voir la dedans, et si sarkozy veut debarasser la france des racailles, il est le bien venu (at least as far as i'm concerned).

French police is at least institutionally racist (at the very least) but they didn't wait for sarkozy to arrive for that unfortunately.

Has sarkozy's arrival bolstered racism in the police forces ??

Maybe, probably. But truth is as long as there are people like you ready to blur the lines between who's an immigrant/youth and who's a racaille, or give the criminals excuses for their crimes, you will find people like me ready to somewhat overlook it because i'm sick and tired of the insecurity and the violence. I want the job to get done and i know people like you will use the police abuses (which are real) for political gain without any consideration for the misery it brings upon us.

And i'm not particularily proud of this guy(i wasn't proud at all of chirac either btw), but i certainly don't think he is a racist, last time i checked he was the first president to have blacks and arabs in his government at least at significant positions.

The kadhafi episode, the overexposure of his private life, his martial, err, shenanigans, the guy mollet letter, the "eternal france" concept and general whitewashing of france's history, the 1 holocaust kid per schoolkid/class idiocy, and supersarko flying to the rescue etc, etc.

I find all this really really annoying too, so why do i not join you and your "musician" friend in the bandwagon of the sarkozy haters ??

Well your reference to hitler is a very good clue to that, you guys are just hysterical. And when i listen to what the left has to offer for the country, about the economy, the security, europe or the reform of the public sector and the institutions, i know i want to vote for this guy.

I may not like him very much, but i know his reforms are good for the country, and every time you have a clip like that or a strike like the teachers' last week, it reminds me of that.

[dot king]

"his weekly governmental ration of fois gras."

why Big Daddy, that's foie gras, I do believe . . .
gee, it's haat in here

(when they start giving out a glass or two of Sauternes to go with it, I'll be marching myself : ))

and jus" plain ol' "chapeau" or "bravo" will cheeyuh on this courageous young maan who also was born dirt-poohuh, big daddy

(FWIW he's no more talent-free than a lot of Sarko's singing friends)

an' will you please staaap tellin' these haat stowries about your friends who were like caats on a haat tin roof, please big daddy, I can't haahdly bear it . . .

[Daniel Strohl]

Azloon,

"si, un chapeau a lui"

Azloon, sorry, I don't understand. It is probably in relation with the rap Charles has posted. However, I didn't bother to watch it and listen to it, since as Richard Jones says, and I totally agree, "rap is crap".

[azloon]

dot --

what accent are you trying to reproduce? it approaches unintelligibility.

this singer guy is talentless but admirable. like many popular artists.

why are you so snippy today?

too many glasses sauterne last night, ou pour le dejeuner.

recently, you've been so kind and agreeable.

:(

[azloon]

Daniel --

i'll bet you haven't heard Snoop Dog.

don't worry about my illiterate french. dot has been so kind as to wade through it and set me straight.

chapeau to you for keeping your hat and your head while all others about you are losing theirs (Kipling).

[Daniel Strohl]

Azloon,

I didn't know this quote from Kipling. My wife has a somewhat different view : "Fortunately, your head is attached to your trunk - otherwise, you would manage to forget it somewhere ..."

PS : you are right - I never heard Snoop Dog

[Dominique]

I think the clip STRESS of the band JUSTICE is more of a real debate. It is a big buzz right now. Sarko free, but, stinks!

Lepen on the rock! a bunch of white bobo trash making money at any cost for ... all the others.

http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/justice/video/x58z2a_justice-stress-official-video_music

[azloon]

IF.....

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

"If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools" seems particularly relevant to some recent skirmishes here.

so daniel, your cool-headedness has nothing to do with forgetting your car keys. tell your helpful wife we're talking about a higher order of magnitude here (tho she probably won't be persuaded. :) )

[marc millier]

the video is very bad and the song too.
Our french president is very rude ,

[dot king]

why are you so snippy today?

too many glasses sauterne last night, ou pour le dejeuner.

recently, you've been so kind and agreeable.

azloon to me

?????? now how have you managed to take that post the wrong way? or are you, yourself being sarcastic against poor old me?

to explain (again - sigh)
you repeated the same joke about your friend who had no toys (almost) on two threads, i thought you were thinking you were "shouting down a well" again, like over the Serge Reggiani thing (which if you remember i resolved for you specially when no-one else took any notice - hmm).

so i KINDLY took up your joke and replied to it in a way i thought you'd latch on to (after all I could hardly say that i had girlfriends who told the same story :))
I hesiate to suggest that maybe it's YOU who had too much Sauternes last night - which is in a way a contradiction in terms:)

and, as i know you like to perfect your french, au passage, i gave (cadeau! cadeau!) you "foie gras" to replace your "fois gras" which doesn't taste half as good.

as for the accent, well, "big daddy" would surely suggest to an educated man such as your goodself that it was sort of "south-ish" (OMG! don't tell me you aren't familiar with Tenessee Williams - i'm SO sorry :))
also i'm reading "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil", so am steeped in deep Savannah drawl, and it was a bit of Miss Maudie Atkinson and "i just stopped by to say hey" thrown in for good measure.

does all that answer your question?
i wasn't being "snippy" at all, quite the opposite, i thought.
I was being NICE - shall I write in at the bottom or the top of all future posts?

oh well, i seem to spend a lot of my time explaining what i think of as humour

maybe time to go kill some mocking birds?

[dot king]

AZLOON

Delia and Dr Buzzard send you this straight from The Garden

voodoo, Big Daddy, voodoo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orNpH6iyokI

[azloon]

Dot --

forgive me. your detailed references often fly right past my limited brain. now that you've parsed your message, with explanatory footnotes, i am beginning to get your original point.

don't romanticize savannah to much. i was stationed near there while in the navy and it's ok, but OTT glamorized by Tennessee Williams and the Midnight movie. (it has modernized and become less parochial in the past 20 years).

what sticks in my mind about savannah is that the 'sweet' southern girls woudn't date, or even talk much, to we ('us' in our vernacular) Yankee boys.

and when your 25, that really hurts, if you know what i mean.

or it could have been me.

[Daniel Strohl]

Azloon,

I like your post in verses - who is the author?

"what sticks in my mind about savannah is that the 'sweet' southern girls ..."

This reminds me of an old American tune : "Sweet Georgia Brown". I still remember the music (I was may be 15 when I got it on a 78 RPM record), but not the words. I am no good at music or poetry (among others things, as my already mentioned wife would say :))

[dot king]

FOR DANIEL STROHL I've been trying to find a sung version, but haven't come up with anything - only Anita O'Day and she doesn't sing it to the usual tune,(though she's wearing a wonderful outfit, big Georgia lady's hat an'all y'all :)) but here are the lyrics:

(BTW Azloon's poem is Kipling)

Sweet Georgia Brown
Words by A. Ken Casey, Music by Maceo Pinkard

Verse 1: She just got here yesterday, Things are hot here now they say,
There's a new gal in town.
Gals are jealous, there's no doubt. All the guys just rave about
Sweet, Sweet Georgia Brown.
And ever since she came, the colored folks all claim:

No gal made has got a shade on Sweet Georgia Brown.
Two left feet, but oh, so neat has Sweet Georgia Brown.
They all sigh and wanna die for Sweet Georgia Brown,
I'll tell you just why, you know I don't lie (not much!).

It's been said she knocks 'em dead when she lands in town.
Since she came why it's a shame how she's cooled 'em down.
Fellas that she can't get Must be fellas that she ain't met.
Georgia claimed her, Georgia named her, Sweet Georgia Brown.

All you gals will get the blues, all you pals will surely lose.
And, there's but one excuse.
Now I've told you who she was, and I've told you what she does,
Still, give this gal her dues.
This colored maiden's prayer is answered anywhere;

No gal made has got a shade on Sweet Georgia Brown.
Two left feet, but oh, so neat has Sweet Georgia Brown.
They all sigh and wanna die for Sweet Georgia Brown,
I'll tell you just why, you know I don't lie (not much!).

All those tips the porter slips to Sweet Georgia Brown
They buy clothes at fashion shows for one dollar down.
Fellas, won'tcha tip your hats. Oh boy, ain't she the cats?
Who's that mister, tain't her sister,
It's Sweet Georgia Brown.

[azloon]

Sweet Georgia Brown was the 'warmup' song of the Harlem Globetrotters, an all-black basketball team that toured the world back in the 40 and 50s before african-americans came to constitute 90% of the outstanding professional players.

it sent chills up my spine to see these wonderful athletes shuckin' and jivin' with the basketball in ways unthought of by white players at that time (they were effectively banned from what was then an all-white sport).

the Globetrotters were a precursor of things to come, the emergent face of a 'new' basketball, one of the most graceful of all human sports, imo.

anyone here ever seen the Globetrotters?

Abe Saperstein, a humanist, and opportunistic jewish guy from NY, put the team together and lead them until his death many years later.

the opportunity to seem them in person was one the big thrills of my childhood in mostly 'lily-white' america , when blacks were forced to be invisible.

[dot king]

"anyone here ever seen the Globetrotters?" Azloon

Of course, they're legendary.
Though on TV not in person.

[Daniel Strohl]

Dot,

Many thanks for the Sweet Georgia Brown lyrics.

Azloon,

You seem to be a Kiplingomane ... Good choice!

Even if I never saw them playing in real, I remember very well the Harlem Globe Trotters. They toured Europe several times if I am not wrong.

I remember also very well the Golden Gate Quartet - they participated may be 10 years ago at the Munster Jazz Festival. They got big ovations. There was also a young lady from an American city with a French name (Des Moines ?) - she was very talented too, but I don't remember her name.

PS : Munster is a small city (Vallée de Munster, fromage de Munster) close to Colmar where we live.

[JJ]

"Piss off, jerk?" "Get lost, wanker"? Come off it,Charles,the French president isn't that rude. In fact he's barely rude at all. I could say Sarkozy's phrase to my bi-lingual mother with no fear of offending her. I wouldn't dream of using "wanker" - a word with very concrete associations - or "jerk" (for similar reasons) or indeed "piss off", which is almost as forceful as "f__ off". All this is of little importance as Rap is the lowest form of Pop: violent, vulgar and ugly - and hate-arousing.

[I stand by my translation, JJ... The words I suggested are nowhere near as strong as F...off. CB]

[JJ]

Charles,
Firstly, it is interesting that many English forums won't print "the f word" in full whereas "piss off" is almost as offensive. "Wanker" isn't offensive? Well, I would rather be called a "f****er" than a "wanker". Wouldn't you? You may stand by your translations if you wish. It just so happens that you are on the wrong track.This is a question of facts not opinion.