The meeting was made on rue du Pescadou, or the fisherman’s street in Provençal, although in La Castellane, a city in the 15th arrondissement of Marseille, there are today more fishermen than sailors. Hat screwed on the head, long hair tidy and large sunglasses pushed in, So La Zone (SLZ), Sofiane for her first name, awaits our arrival perched on the esplanade which dominates the access to the bottom of the district. The opportunity for an easy joke against the rapper who tells in From cell to castle, his first album, his journey as a prisoner in a drug trafficking case where he came close to being convicted. “In reality, I was more on the porch,” he smiles. The porch, where the transactions took place in relation to the esplanade where the lookouts were usually stationed.
Finally, smile. A very big word for Sofiane, 25, who returns from Paris where he spent two days promoting his album and who some present as “the new nugget of Marseille rap”. “It’s sure, it’s gratifying, but in reality I don’t give a damn about what other people think,” he says with a half-smile, settling down on a bench accompanied by his little brother “VR” and his friend Lou. For his album, the young man signed with Believe, which already supports many artists from Marseille (SCH, Jul, Naps, etc.) but also from Paris (Heuss l’Enfoiré).
A Marseillais on British beats
For production, it’s at l’Adjoint, the essential beatmaker from Marseille, that it happens, in his Consolat studio. “He’s the one who really took me to a new level. Because basically, I was doing dry rap, more tempted by melancholic trap or angry drill. We worked on the instrumentals and ended up with sounds close to 2step [registre musical apparu d’abord dans la dance anglaise du début des années 1990]. He was the one who also told me: “Put on a little vocoder.” And it goes well even if I wanted to keep This is our lives with my dry rap. Finally, I put vocoder on the last verse to please him! » There is also Graya, another rapper from La Castellane older than him, who helped him a lot, explains SLZ.
The whole result is an album with a renewed style, a small feat when in Marseille the Jul style has become a school and SCH has imposed its stamp. “We had to innovate and stand out too,” explains SLZ. So much so, “I’m from Marseille but I don’t rap with the Marseille style,” he concludes. Its other trademark is the systematic presence in the instruments of a violin, a piano and a guitar. “In fact I liked these instruments without really knowing where it came from, and it was the Deputy who said to me: “Oh, but did you listen to Eminem Minot a lot?” And that’s true “.
So La Zone remembers his first steps in rap: “I was 13 years old. I was in a car, a 206 in Plan de Campagne with some grown-ups. And they say to me: “So you’re into rap, you say?”, and they put on an instrumental from Jul. And I rapped a little text that I had, probably a story about sex and theft. » A passion that has not let go. “I continued to rap, but in hiding. Because you see, at the beginning, you’re a little ashamed, that’s normal. » But life also gave him time to refine his style. At 25 years old, and with three stays in prison – including a first at the age of 15 – SLZ made a brave face against bad luck. “A blessing in disguise,” he sums up. But an evil that didn’t do everyone any good. “I was incarcerated in Tarascon, and my older brother was in the cell just below mine. Sometimes he yelled at me to shut up, I can still hear him. »
La Castellane, the besieged castle
But it has been a handful of months since he apparently settled all his accounts with the law. No more bracelets, no more removal measures, no more Spip (prison integration and probation service). “It’s been since 2011, I’ve been waiting for my freedom. And I think the trigger was when I signed with Believe where I said to myself: “Okay. Now, I might as well put all my energy into music, I have time to make up for.” » While walking around the city, the young rapper waves from right to left, a check here, another there, and a girl calls out to him: “Alexandra Ahahah”, proof that his choruses are starting to circulate.
But in the city this Thursday the atmosphere is a little leaden. Around ten CRS vans took over the scene in a “shelling” operation that has become almost daily here. The police officers, hooded, seem to be taking a close interest in a block near which a Telegram email address is tagged “Coffee la tour”, a reference to the legendary K tower demolished in 2020, certainly one of the most lucrative deal points of the history of Marseille networks. So La Zone and Lou hesitate for a moment: “Screw your balls, we’re throwing ourselves into the mouth of the wolf”, and cross the ranks of indifferent “kepis”, hands in their pockets and nothing in their bag.
Looking ahead, SLZ already has a second album in production. “I only try to plan things for the music. For the rest, I live day by day. I’ve always improvised, I actually like it. Because, in truth, life is a little bland,” judges the young man. “So if when you wake up you know exactly what awaits you, it’s even worse. » With one certainty, however: “To speak French, with my brothers, we don’t make a living from music. But I keep one foot on the ground, I have two CAPs, in plumbing and in cooking, with which I quickly got to work. We also have two or three businesses, like the pizza truck there,” points So La Zone beyond the parked police vans. To believe that “his castle” is under siege.
– “Did you know that Castellane comes from “castel”, which means castle in Provençal? »
– ” Are you serious ? So, this is my castle! But I didn’t do much school, you know. I was kicked out of five colleges in two years. I’ve always been alone. I’ve never experienced going home with a meal prepared by your mother. I’m not going to tell you that I missed it, I didn’t know it. »
And if Sofiane’s ambition is to “break out”, it is in the rap game that this is allowed.