• Lobo EL, a rapper from Nancy wants to change the way people look at the Vosges region.
  • In his song "88Spleen", the lyrics describe these Vosges to him, without wanting to embellish them.
  • For him, "if some smile when hearing the name of their city in a rap title when they did not expect it, it will already be good".

The suicide of young Lucas, the discovery of Rose's body... Two sordid news stories have again attracted the worst light on the Vosges in recent weeks. "And the Petit Grégory affair is far from being forgotten forty years later," adds Lobo EL. The rapper from Nancy does not deny it: unflattering clichés regularly stick to this department of the Grand-Est.

But the place cannot be reduced to that. He knows him, who used to spend "holidays and weekends" there at his grandparents' house when he was younger. So the 2019 improv rap world champion "End Of The Weak" had the idea to write "88Spleen" where he gives "[his] point of view on the Vosges".

"I'm not a spokesperson for anyone. I did not call the General Council or anyone else. It is not a description but simply a thought to my Vosges who are not put on the map, "says Lobo EL denouncing a rap often very focused on large cities, such as Paris or Marseille. "We rarely talk about the bleds and the countryside. There I wanted to do it, without falling into the Kamini (the author of "Marly-Gomont")! »

"Sentimental desert, it's not Nevada, but there are cliffs to hurtle down / at the foot of the building I bring my gravel / I don't have the shack at the beach, not the shack and not the baraka at all / the composure in the speeches as if I had been born in Mirecourt," writes the one who has just released his sixth solo EP, "Iceberg". Or again: "Bre-som stories there is plethora, we know less the palm tree than the plane trees / winter is freezing, summer the sun zlatane us"

Either words that describe these Vosges to him, without wanting to embellish them. "I'm not saying the department is great but we do what we can with what we have. But the region is beautiful, you can spend your holidays there and be very happy, "adds Lobo EL without having the ambition to change the image. "That would be ambitious. But if some smile when they hear the name of their city in a rap track when they did not expect it, it will already be good. »

Notice to the inhabitants of Mirecourt, Thaon, Raon, Vittel or Epinal, we are talking about you ...

  • Local
  • Vosges
  • Grand East
  • Lorraine
  • Epinal
  • Rap
  • Culture