Rapper Kery James continues to campaign against police brutality in theatre

One of the greatest voices of French rap, Kery James, returned to this controversial subject on Police violence on stage, in a militant dialogue between a judge and a lawyer.

His latest dialogue, "A Huis Clos", is intended as a sequel: Soulaymaan Traore, a lawyer (Kery James), takes a judge, Nicolas (Jérôme Kircher), hostage, accusing him of influencing the jury in the acquittal of a police officer who shot his brother Demba in the back.

Kery James, continues his campaign against police brutality, which has been a feature of his music, theatre and film work for many years.

"If I didn't have hope that things would change, I wouldn't have written this play. We're all trying to do our bit. I happen to be an artist and what I can do is tell stories. I do that through the stories I choose to tell, on stage or in film or in my songs," he said

Ulysse Boulestin, a drama teacher in Nanterre, appreciated the "union between two characters who had nothing to understand each other.

"For the poetry of rap to arrive on a theatre stage in such a present and gripping way, and for it to take a whole room with it, which is not necessarily accustomed to the theatre at first, where it whispers a little, where it talks and at the end everyone is gripped by the same magnitude and everyone stands up with so much emotion, applauding this text at the end, which is magnificent, and this moment of union between these two characters who had nothing to understand each other... It's still hair-raising!"

Dialogue alone won't change the situation, but it's the first step", Kery told his audience in Nantes.

Another variation on the rapper's message: his second film, "Banlieusards 2", released at the end of September on Netflix, once again features Soulaymaan, the student lawyer, alongside his brothers, Demba and Noumouké. Kery James is the actor, scriptwriter and co-director of this sequel.

An album is also planned for the end of the year.