À la vie, à la mort

As the sales of the legendary Appetite For Destruction approach the 20 million copies in the United States, who remembers today that it almost never saw the light of day? Not only the bonds uniting Axl Rose, Slash, Duff McKagan, Izzy Stradlin and Steven Adler were fragile, but fate seemed set against this band which seemed to be slow to catch on to Mötley Crüe, Ratt, Cinderella or Dokken. This is almost as a kindness that David Geffen had accepted to welcome this homeless band on his label. He would not regret his altruism…

Can we imagine Guru without DJ Premier and De La Soul without Prince Paul? Behind every iconic rapper and cult group, there is a visionary producer who learned from his predecessors and developed his own sound. From the pioneer Marley Marl, who laid the foundations for modern production by showing what could be done with the first samples, to the shooting star J Dilla who, before his death at the age of 32, managed to leave a lasting mark on the genre, not to forget Bomb Squad’s sonic revolution and Dr Dre’s undisputed dominance on the West Coast. Here’s an overview of the studio masters that have ruled the hip-hop world for thirty years.

“If punk was about getting rid of hippies, then I'm getting rid of grunge.” It was with this sentence from Damon Albarn in 1993 that England invaded the stage previously dominated by Nirvana and Seattle grunge. Britpop is deeply linked to politics and local identity and emerged just as Tony Blair and New Labour were entering the scene. English romanticism was once again becoming attractive compared to the American identity, which was considered too hollow in the UK. Make way for “Cool Britannia”.