Songs I Brought With Me, Songs I Found Here

A look back through my own writing on French music—from NYC to Marseille rap to lost and found disco crates

French music didn’t just help me learn the language (or start to?)—it helped me understand the place. Not all at once. It came in fragments: a lyric that made a sentence click, a chorus that explained a joke, a beat that felt like home to me. I search for a lot of music, but these were all songs that came to me.

Some of it found me in cafés, on bar playlists, on the radio in someone’s car. Some of it I’d been listening to since college, just liking the music.

This little roundup pulls together some of the songs and stories I’ve already written—things that stuck. From 90s rap to metal festivals and disco B-sides, they’re not meant to be comprehensive. Just a map of how music keeps reintroducing me to France. And sometimes, to myself.

Rediscovering France, One Song at a Time (Again)

I’ve been writing about French music for a while now—sometimes obsessively, sometimes by accident. What started as curiosity turned into a running collection of stories, genre dives, and cultural detours. These aren’t polished playlists or critic-approved takes. They're just moments from my own listening life—late-night deep dives, overheard bar playlists, or things I kept playing long after the article was finished.

This little roundup gathers some of my favorites from what I’ve already written—snapshots of how music in France rewired my ears, reshaped memories, or just made me laugh. From Marseille rap to forgotten disco anthems, here’s what’s stayed with me.

mixed media? photo by the author (me)

What kind of thread should I follow next? More genre dives? Live shows? Misheard lyrics and overheard lives?

I have a whole Tragic Singers post I wanted to work on, but it’s kind of depressing.

K

Rap was probably some of the first music I listened to and thought, “this is France today.” French rap made me look at the culture differently.

French rap started by copying the U.S., but built its own world in time. This video is one of the first songs by the legendary MC Solaar.

Rappers have grandkids - a lot of the rappers I listen to are my age or older.

I did a whole series about it, starting with MC Solaar. What I found was more than homage—it’s poetry, politics, and swagger with a different focus on the world. A lot of themes echo, but the voices are uniquely French. IAM, NTM, PNL, Jul... didn’t just borrow styles—they built new ones.

Metal

Heavy metal surprised me. It’s hard to describe just how visible heavy metal is in this part of France - not a majority, but a color in the palette of landscape.

I want to write much more about it here, but Sortilège can get you started. I loved writing this piece. Also—Hellfest isn’t just big, it’s the biggest metal festival in the world. Right near us in Clisson, the whole area hums with it.

Rediscovering genres in France

France is full of old vinyl made new again, especially when it comes to funk and disco. Chemise’s She Can’t Love You - not even a one-hit wonder, revived here when it was discovered by crate digging DJs in the middle of yet another French Disco Redux in the early 2000s.

France has had about 3 resurgences of disco since the 70s.

classics

Chanson is everywhere here - and sometimes a bit tough to categorize Some of it hits—like Dalida, vintage, theatrical, a little tragic. Others? French Light Adult Contemporary isn’t quite my thing yet. Yet I always meant to get back to Dalida. She was amazing.