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Suprême NTM

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Suprême NTM

Suprême NTM (French pronunciation: [sypʁɛm ɛn te ʔɛm]), or simply NTM, is a French hip hop band formed in 1989 in Saint-Denis, Île-de-France. The band comprises rappers JoeyStarr and Kool Shen. Their 6 albums were released by Sony Music.

The group takes its name from the French slang "NTM", an initialism for "Nique Ta Mère" ("Fuck Your Mother"; the vulgar slang word "niquer" is derived from North African Sabir "i nik" ("he makes love"), which in turn comes from the Arabic "nak" (same meaning)). Suprême NTM is known for representing the perspective of minority groups in underprivileged, "invisible" neighborhoods around Paris. Through the use of politically conscious lyrics, NTM raises awareness of police brutality, racist legislation, and youth violence, culminating in a series of highly publicized legal battles with the French authorities. Their musical style is predominantly hardcore rap, although later albums include funk, soul and reggae influences.

The group is outspokenly critical of racism and class inequality in French society, and while their earlier music is violent, some of their later work, such as "Pose ton Gun" ("Put down your Gun"), is explicitly anti-violent.

In 1998, the group released its last album of original material under the NTM moniker, as both Joey Starr and Kool Shen started their own labels, promoting new bands and branching out in other fields such as the clothing industry (2High is Kool Shen's brand, Com-8 is Joey Starr's).

While officially the band still exists, and its well-known name was used in 2001 to promote a 'duel' album pitting the two labels' artists against each other, Kool Shen was quoted in 2004 saying "on a fini avec NTM en 98" ("We finished with NTM in 1998").

The group is known for its gritty, dark and sometimes violent lyrics, as well as for the contrast between the two rappers' styles. While Joey Starr (also known as Jaguar Gorgonne and Double-R) has a relatively slow flow, aggressive lyrics and a deep, booming voice (which he sometimes uses to yell such as in "Pose ton Gun"), Kool Shen has a funkier flow as well as witty and rather melancholic lyrics.[citation needed]

Everything started in summer 1983 where Joey Starr and Kool Shen were watching American hip hop dancers break it down in Paris. Joey Starr and Kool Shen started learning how to dance and defined their own style, smurf for Joey Starr and break dancing for Kool Shen. They then started painting graffiti, and were part of a graffiti writer group that was composed of DRC, TCG, 93 MCs and Joey and Kool Shen. After this period Joey and Kool got into the rapping industry where they were publicly heard on the radio for the first time in 1989 on radio Nova. Understanding the background of this group facilitates understanding the message behind its harsh lyrics. NTM is considered to be a hardcore rap group; the themes in their songs are mainly about social inequality and racism where Jean-Marie Le Pen is often used as a racist figure in their songs. Some political figures proclaim that there are too many immigrants in France as a 1991 survey indicated that 71% of the French population said that there were too many Arabs in France. Most French hip hop groups are represented by the youth, and this generation is the second generation of those immigrants and were born on French soil.

The 1993 release 1993… J'appuie sur la Gâchette ("1993… I'm Pulling the Trigger") contained a track with the same name, about suicide, which was censored on most French TV channels (despite not creating any scandal, unlike "La Police") and a track "Police" that featured violent criticism of the police. The police responded to this by taking NTM to court. The court decided in favor of NTM. However, many French radio stations decided to boycott the group's music.

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