Straight from 1998 comes this cassette by the French Hip Hop artist Shurik’n. As some might acknowledge, 1998 was a good year for music. Wether it be youthful sentiment or not… We had lots of Hip Hop coming from Marseille, the city in the Southern part of France. I rarely listen to Hip Hop anymore, but this one release somehow stayed with me. You probably wouldn’t suspect that the vinyl version, a triple black vinyl LP affair goes for quite a penny now, approximately 200 euro for a mint copy.

I was living near the French border, so it’s no surprise that I had a friend coming from France at school. He was the one who introduced me to Shurik’n. The rapper comes from the same rap scene as Fonky Family, 3ième Oeil, Faf Larage, Coté Obscure, etc. For sure the Mecca of French Hip Hop way back in 1998. But let’s not forget the Paris scene, with the notorious NTM from the same time period. The album “Où Je Vis” debuted at the top of the French album charts.

Shurik’n “Où Je Vis” cassette

No, I’m not a Hardcore purist as this blog might suggest. I like to relax with some Hip Hop now and then. Tongue in cheek and full of street wisdom this one is. Shurik’n was inspired by oriental philosophies and martial arts.

French Hip Hop was also played at the ODK Skate shop by the way, when Micha the vocalist of ODK Crew was taking care of bussiness… So this explains his rather Hip Hop way of appearing at shows, the numerous backings he did and so on.

I snagged the tape version for a reasonable price on eBay recently. Glad to have it, wish I still had my Sony Walkman to play it… Brings back a great vibe. Never listened to his later stuff.