“Young people from the suburbs, we don’t come from the same place but we all had the same childhood,” says Nassuf Siaka. This young actor and content creator from Athis-Mons (Essonne) is seeing his popularity increase on social networks. On TikTok, in particular, he parodies, through short sketches, the inhabitants of the suburbs. “What I show in the videos is my life, explains the teenager. What I see, I redo it on video. And that appeals because these “real scenes that we don’t talk about” actually speak to a lot of people.
The former who returns to the district, the scratcher, the one who has broken through, the one who leaves prison… Everyone takes it for their rank. “I don’t want to create debates or controversies, I’m just doing this to make people laugh,” he says. More amused than offended, former suburbanites recognize each other with a touch of nostalgia. By dint of imitating them, “they call me the old one”, says, amused, the young 19 year old.
Fame where he did not expect it
“I saw myself as a professional footballer at Barça. “Originally, it was in football that Nassuf wanted to break through. His passion was born in 2011, when he watched his first Messi match with his father. As a teenager, he changed college to begin a course of sports studies at the Paris Football Training Center (CFFP). One of the most important clubs in the Paris region. “Football made me dream, I understood that I was going to do something with my life,” he says. But competition and reality catch up with him. After a year spent on the bench, he was forced to return to his original college.
“With us, there was only rap and football,” says the young man, who had never imagined a career otherwise. “When I had ideas for other projects, the others laughed,” he continues. I was a little ashamed. In 2016, Nassuf started creating content on YouTube. “But I didn’t show my face and I used slides so that people wouldn’t know it was me,” he continues. Seven years later, his TikTok account has more than 190,000 subscribers and some of his videos exceed one million views.
His own short film
Nassuf never had any particular interest in the seventh art. “I never watch TV, I don’t have Netflix, I don’t go to the cinema…”, he says. However, it is thanks to his acting that his life takes a new turn. “A neighborhood elder, whom I consider my big brother, encouraged me to apply for a casting. And it worked. “Some time later, the teenager embodies the little brother of JoeyStarr in Supremes, the biopic of NTM. The same week, he played in a France 2 TV movie entitled Nobody’s Child.
But Nassuf remains cautious. “Every time I wanted to professionalize myself in something, it didn’t work,” he confides. Although he plans to release his first short film in the coming weeks, the teenager is continuing his bachelor’s degree and looking for a job so as not to depend on TikTok remuneration. He still teased his project entitled “Concentré” at 20 minutes. “It will talk about my life as a music video director. He also discusses the importance of dating to forge oneself in life. It’s a movie with a moral. »