Artists take sides

Marseille, Sunday. In an Instagram story, SCH says he is “proud to see that most of our youth has a political conscience”, recalls that “violence has an origin, it is never gratuitous”, then turns to the shop windows: “My support also goes to the shopkeepers who suffered collateral damage.” A rapper who speaks to both sides.

Three voices, three countries

He is not alone. On 8 February, Bad Bunny sang the Super Bowl halftime show entirely in Spanish, among plantain trees and casitas, with one line on screen: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love”. A week earlier, at the Grammys, he had said “ICE out”; in September he had dropped every US date, “very concerned” that his fans could face deportation threats. And this week, social media dug up Eminem on Trump, in Billboard in 2018: “If I lose half my fan base, so be it.”

« Violence has an origin, it is never gratuitous »SCH, Instagram story, this weekend

Nobody asked them

We hear the objection: an artist is not elected. True. But these three give no voting instructions. They say where they come from and accept paying the price in public. We prefer artists who speak to artists who sell. Who else still talks to both sides of the shop window?