MAP

Often abbreviated simply as M.A.P., the politically charged French rap collective Le Ministère des Affaires Populaire weaves violin and accordion textures through its sound, prompting occasional labels of rap-musette. The ensemble, rooted in the Lille metropolitan area of Nord-Pas de Calais and drawing on Algerian heritage, consists of rappers Dias and HK alongside musicians Jeoffrey Arnone on accordion and Hacène Khelifa on violin. Their first full-length release, Debout là d'Dans, appeared in 2006 via the Pias label; the album, shaped with Lille-based beatmaker Axiom, climbed to number 136 on the French albums chart and drew favorable parallels to the similarly musette-inflected French rap outfit Java. A four-track follow-up, the Grain d'Sel EP, surfaced in 2007, with its title song among the ten tracks shortlisted to represent France at the Eurovision Song Contest. The group’s sophomore album, Les Bronzés Font du Ch'ti, arrived in 2009, crafted in tandem with beatmaker Stanko Fat and partly shaped by a 2008 trip to Palestine.