French Rapper Booba Hit With Hate Complaint for ‘Glorifying’ Toulouse Killer
A French watchdog group filed a complaint against a rap artist they accuse of glorifying the anti-Semitic murderer Mohammed Merah.
The National Bureau for Vigilance against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, filed the complaint this week against Elie Yaffa, better known in France by his stage name Booba, in connection with the lyrics of a song titled “Porsche Panamera.”
The video was removed from Booba’s official Youtube channel on Wednesday, the day BNVCA published a statement condemning the video.
Mohammed Merah, who killed three children and a rabbi in 2012 in Toulouse, is mentioned twice in the song, which Booba performed together with the rap group S.D.H.S Family.
“We’ll shoot anyone for a cause, Mohammed Merah,” the group sings. “Bang bang in your head, we’ll blow you away, we’re angry like Merah.”
Later in the number, they sing: “Allah Yerahmo [Arabic for ‘May Allah have mercy on him’], because only crime pays off.”
“Booba’s lyrics amount to endorsing the anti-Jewish and anti French killer of Toulouse, who is clearly referenced,” Sammy Ghozlan of BNVCA told JTA.
Booba, the son of a Muslim father from Senegal, last year drew anti-Semitic social media attacks when a song he released called for vengeance for the victims of slavery and the Holocaust.
Booba has sold more than 1 million albums in France.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO