WE WERE THERE – The artist performed on Saturday evening at the Stade de France, sold out. A feat that took the form, in front of a conquered public, of a retrospective of his 28-year career.
What strikes first when you go to see a Booba concert is the diversity of its audience. Age diversity, if the fans of the first hour, for some forty-something’s, are there, there are also fans under 20, born when the rapper from Hauts-de-Seine had already made a name for himself in French rap. Gender diversity too, the fairer sex represents a good quarter of the public, which may surprise the uninitiated. Finally, diversity of social origin and skin color.
At the Stade de France, the mythical France Black, White, Beur was present in a good-natured atmosphere. In the pit, we thus come across young women spitting out the artist’s most flowery verses by heart like burly fellows who do not hesitate to let go of their most beautiful hips when the most danceable titles of Booba resound (Validated, DKR or dirty mood again).
All had come for the same reason, to communicate on their favorite songs and to attend the coronation of their idol. It doesn’t matter if the sound setup was poor, they know most of the songs by heart anyway. On many titles, Booba also allows himself to rap only one sentence out of two, leaving the public to fill in the blanks.
Communion with the public After 28 years of career, filling the Stade de France (80,000 spectators) represents a crowning achievement for Booba. He is the first French rapper to fill the biggest stadium in France. A coronation that he chose to celebrate alone on stage for most of the show, while the public was expecting many guests. Still, there were surprises. The biggest came during the softest part of the concert. To interpret the song Little Girl in her honor, the young Luna, 8 years old, the rapper’s eldest daughter, arrives on stage. The father and his daughter perform their song together for what constitutes the most moving moment of the evening.
Enough to drive away the bad memory left to him by his last visit to the Stade de France, when he had to cut short his performance. It was during the Urban Peace 2 multi-artist concert, in 2008. Some spectators had taken the Duc de Boulogne to task and the latter had responded with insults and throwing a bottle of whiskey at the spectators in question. A sequence that has remained sadly famous.
Far from this tension, last night Booba allowed himself to go down into the pit to get closer to his audience, to take the phones that his fans held out to him to make short videos that the latter then hastened to broadcast on their social networks. If he was able to renew his audience, it is also because Booba masters the codes of social networks.
After 2h30 of show, Booba finished by distributing some of his best cartridges (Boulbi, Éléphant, Destinée) which brought up the atmosphere one last time in the stands. The voice is exhausted, that of the spectators too. Everyone gave a lot and leaves with the same good-natured spirit that will have brightened up the whole concert. However, several dozen people managed to break through security around the stadium, and some could even have attended the concert afterwards without having tickets, generating a scene of panic among the people who were waiting in the queue.
