Médine - L’4mour
Selected Excerpts
Si j'shoote un bleu, tout ça va sûrement finir en émeute
Les publics rentreront chez eux en s'disant : "On est neutres"
Tout ça m'émeut mais j'ai choisi d'partir sans faire l'haineux
Car on n'coupe pas la ficelle tant qu'on peut défaire les nœuds
Mesdames, messieurs les théâtreux, spectatrices et spectateurs
Ce sera jamais nous contre eux, les mauvaises hеrbes sont des fleurs
[…]
Parce que, quand un Français est con, on dit que c'est un sale con
Mais, quand un Arabe joue au con, on dit qu'c'est un sale Arabe
Et, lorsqu'un flic tue un Noir, les racistes appellent ça du sport
Et, quand un Noir pousse un keuf, ils parlent tous d'animal féroce
D'indigène en TN/Lacoste qui vole aux Français leur travail
La violence a plusieurs visages : celle d'un flingue ou celle d'une cravate
Song Name: L’4MOUR
Artist: Médine
Year: 2024
Country: France
Language: French
Archive themes: Policing · Racialisation · Media · State violence · Banlieues
Artist Profile: Médine is a French-Algerian rapper from Le Havre, widely recognised for politically engaged lyricism that interrogates republican discourse, media narratives and the treatment of racialised populations in France. His work frequently blends historical reference, satire and moral reflection, positioning hip-hop as both cultural critique and civic intervention.
Archival Notes
Featured in the 2025 theatre production La Haine (the stage adaptation of Mathieu Kassovitz’s 1995 film), L’4MOUR is structured as a single, extended verse that moves between indictment and reconciliation. Médine frames contemporary France as a society caught between spectacle and denial, where racialised communities are alternately celebrated and criminalised depending on context – applauded in moments of national pride, yet subjected to routine suspicion and violence in everyday encounters with the state.
The track foregrounds the asymmetry of republican universalism by exposing how race mediates responsibility and blame. Identical acts are interpreted differently depending on the racial identity of the actor, revealing what Médine presents as a moral double standard embedded within policing, media discourse and public perception. State violence is not limited to firearms but is extended metaphorically to bureaucratic indifference, policymaking and televised commentary.
Despite its confrontational nature, the song ultimately rejects hatred as a political endpoint. Using the imagery of knots and threads, Médine suggests that rupture is not inevitable if historical denial and selective memory are confronted.
[English Translation]
If I shoot a cop, this will all surely end in a riot
The public will go home telling themselves, “We’re neutral”
All of this moves me, but I chose to leave without playing the hater
Because you don’t cut the string as long as the knots can still be undone
Ladies and gentlemen of the theatre, spectators and onlookers
It will never be us against them — even so-called weeds are flowers
[…]
Because when a Frenchman acts like an idiot, they say he’s just an idiot
But when an Arab does the same, they say he’s a “dirty Arab”
And when a cop kills a Black man, racists call it sport
But when a Black man pushes a cop, they all speak of asavage animal
Of a colonial native kid in [Nike] TNs and Lacoste who steals jobs from the French
Violence has many faces: the gun or the tie