Tuesday, February 5, 2013

UNCOMMON STORY: France Top Rapper journey to Islam (transcript)


She arrived at our interview with her 4x4 car, her mom, her husband and her little baby.
Diam’s decided to appear for the first time on TV to tell us a very uncommon story how did she move from Rap to Islam, how did she leave her hell of depression to her paradise of Islam. Her veil was the object of controversy without her ever expressing herself on the subject.
She stopped rapping and hasn’t said anything about it so she is now speaking tonight for the first time with her heart open and her words that don’t rap anymore.



TV: Diams; do you want us to call you Melanie or ‘Diam’s’ today?

Diams: Melanie; I have become…just an ordinary woman so I don’t need a nickname anymore.

TV: It has been almost 4 years that you haven’t been on Television. Have you hesitated a lot before appearing on one? Why…because of your veil?

Melanie: For many reasons; already because of the way I am dressed. I know that I will be shocking but also on my apprehension on how you will question me since I know that not everyone is kind, respectful and tolerant.

TV: You are scared that we will question you only about your veil?

Melanie: In fact; it doesn’t disturb me to talk. What disturbs me is the way it’s done. I know that I have an understanding that is not very easy for others to understand. I know that there will be a lot of questioning on this. I was a rapper and so I understand but on the other hand, I gained so much peace and serenity (in my new faith) that I don’t have time to deal with feelings like anger and hate. I prefer staying at home calm and at peace.

TV: Did your hijab (scarf) help you to sort out all that was wrong when you were on stage?

Melanie: Oh yes, it completely healed my heart. I know now what I am doing here on earth (life). I am no longer a free electron or a grain of sand lost in a storm that doesn’t know what he’s doing here. I know why I’m here (on earth). And waking every morning trying to get better is a huge program in one day.

TV: Is it true when you say that discovering “your God;” you felt really loved for the first time?

Melanie: Ah! Yes, yes, when you know that you have the love of God, you feel fulfilled.

TV: In your book you’ve written: “people would prefer that I grilled in the same glory as Amy Winehouse.” (Note: Amy Winehouse was the British singer who recently died of drug overdose.)

Melanie: Yes, what I meant was that when I was reading what my critics were saying about me, I wondered if people would have said the same if I ended up like “Amy Whinehouse” or any other depressed artist…would they have said what they said about me? Would have they said that I was a danger to the youth? Is that the danger; to look for peace and to be a good person and wanting a family life? If others decided to destroy their lives; it’s not the same end I’m willing to have.

TV: you loved rap music?

Melanie: Yeah, it was becoming all my life. It was a music genre that didn’t require me to know how to sing or play an instrument or anything like that. What was important was to have things to say and the way you say it. I had something in my heart so I would; I shout it out. It just came out when it had to.

TV: First album when 17 years old?

Melanie: Yeah!

TV: Rap start at 22?

Melanie: uhmm!

TV: You are overall the biggest album seller in France!

Melanie: Yea, it’s crazy. Even I was overwhelmed; just to say it today…I know that no one yet attained it.

TV: And the public loved you; do you miss them?

Melanie: In reality; I never considered my fans as anonymous crowd. For me, everyone is a reflection of my personal life. They always tells me that what I was singing was exactly what they were living. I loved confessing myself to them and they loved doing the same back to me. I suffered from being considered heartless person and that I could no longer have a discussion with someone who suffered.

TV: What shocked us was: throughout your years as Rap Star, we saw your energy and pleasing way of being on stage; even a joy of life but we never imagined that glory didn’t suit you.

Melanie: When I was performing; I forgot my pain that’s true. When I was on stage; it was intense, same thing when I am in the studio besides that; silence, anxiety and loneliness were big inside me. The coming of recognition as a “star” really didn’t fit inside of me. Even if many people considered that I enjoyed this state of life. Yes, I have tried to enjoy this kind of life but I never manage to do so. I tried to have fun in parties, I tried to socialize. I tried to do all these kinds of things but then again, I thought to myself that this wasn’t right…

TV: and yet; you had all the things a star could have wanted.

Melanie: Yeah!

TV: You had the cars, the shoes, the phones, all the wanting.

Melanie: I had everything; I had everything that anyone dreamed of having in a star’s life.

TV: So you were wrong about what you dreamed of?

Melanie: No, I believed in this dream but it was just an illusion in fact I wasn’t big headed but I had all the symptoms. I was so self-possessed that I used to ignore my surroundings for example; we go somewhere and there is a team of 100 people and you leave without thinking to thank anybody. Today; I am conscious of this.

TV: How many albums did you sell in total?

Melanie: Around 3-4 million sold.

TV: How many performances?

Melanie: around 50.

TV: So…a crazy life?

Melanie: A crazy life…

TV: You were able to buy an apartment for your mother? You also bought an immense apartment for yourself but nonetheless; you ended up alone inside it.

Melanie: I cried by myself in fact, that’s what people don’t seem to realize,  that is why, it makes me smile when I hear people saying; “yeah, she ruined her career!” I feel like telling them, “is that really the purpose of life?” How many people suicide or are under psychiatric treatment after attempting to earn a high paying/famous job. I know that’s not true because I was this “business manager, that boss, that big business woman but I was still upset, I was still lonely as ever. I sometimes used to cry like a baby not knowing what I was doing on this earth. “Why me..?” “Why this success…?” “Why this money…?” These were the questions I kept on asking myself.

TV: You were on top of your glory in March, 2008 at the “Victoire de la msique.” You had a standing ovation because you just sang “Ma France a Moi.” 3 weeks before the show; you spent a month in a psychiatric hospital and you returned home 2 days after.

Melanie: What people don’t know is that I was completely destroyed. I was taking pills. I just got out of a psychiatric hospital. I was just doing what I had to do really and then everyone stood up and it was completely beyond me. I felt like saying “stop…you don’t know what you are seeing is just an envelope but inside there is nothing, it’s empty. “I’m empty, I’m sad.” I don’t like my life. I don’t even like life itself.” I felt like yelling on the microphone, “Stop…stop clapping…please just stop!”

TV: And you returned to the hospital 2 days after…

Melanie: Yea, I returned 2 days after.

TV: And it’s the downward slope to hell with medications.

Melanie: Yeah, it was the medications and the psychiatrics. They kept trying to sooth my pain but since they failed to do so, they eased the pain and they eased my pain with pills.

TV: And no more inspiration, no more lyrics…emptiness in the mind.

Melanie: No more; no more heart; a heart that beats but is if no use. It doesn’t make you cry or smile, it’s empty.

TV: Until the day you started taking too many drugs because life was unbearable. You were rescued in a narrow escape.

Melanie: Exactly up to the day that I wanted to sleep. Basically, I didn’t really want to die because I never exactly saw death as being a rest personally but I always had this feeling of going to sleep.

TV: To understand how serious this depression was, you were a danger to yourself and nearly for others.

Melanie: Yeah!

TV: It was crazy times, you wrote in your book.

Melanie: Yes, yes…yeah and the pain was big enough for them to prefer keeping me isolated so that I don’t hurt others and I don’t hurt myself.

TV: Then it happened what you described to be the most wonderful thing in your life, is that one night…you were with friends Charlotte who is a catholic and Zouzzou.

Melanie: Soussou…

TV: Soussou who is a Muslim who tells you, “I’m going to pray…”

Melanie: Yeah!

TV: And you tell her something amazing, “I really want to pray too.”

Melanie: “Yeah; me too.” Throughout this whole year where I’ve been cumulating clinic stays, medications, depressions and even suicide attempts. I was always a believer but I had a hard time to hold on…to God. It wasn’t a big thing in my life; it wasn’t something important. I believed in one God just like a creator. From time to time; I often said to myself, “I would really like to talk to God!” The idea just sprung to my mind and then after a while I would just give up and carry on with my life and then all of a sudden; your (Muslim) friend is there and tells you, “well, I’m going to pray” but then I say, “But I want to pray too, I want to talk to God too!” And then she just tells me; okay, come then…” and I experienced something…

TV: And you bowed down for the first time in your life.

Melanie: I bowed down for the first time. I put my forehead on the ground. I felt like…not something you would do to anyone other than God. It was strange to be prostrated. It was just like two mountains fell off my shoulder when I bowed down.

TV: The question we want to ask you…your parents were catholic so why did you choose Islam?

Melanie: I was convinced, well at that moment, I was lost. Actually, I was raised by a mother who didn’t talk much about religion. My grandparents were catholic. Indeed, I have learnt a lot about Catholicism from them. I used to go to mass and all that. I was baptized and confirmed following that; I’ve have friends from different confessions. For me; it was true that the Muslims spiritually stood out. Just to say that I couldn’t exactly see the spirituality in other religious groups but Muslims had Ramadan and such. I saw that they were doing something for God and I want to do something for God too…and that was when I went on a holiday to Mauritius.

TV: Mauritius…?

Melanie: …to Mauritius with the Holy Qur’an in my bag because I was advised to take it with me and read it. It was a book that I opened in; how should I say it: simplicity without even realizing what I was going to read.

TV: Very excited…?

Melanie: And it was the revelation; you can put it that way. Yes, and it was the revelation and the ultimate conviction that God exists.

TV: And at that moment you were still a rap star and you didn’t ask yourself whether it was to be complicated? The prayers…?

Melanie: Only when I wear the Hijab otherwise the prayers weren’t a problem. I just thought that I would do them behind closed doors.

TV: But why did you choose to wear the hijab. Couldn’t you be a Muslim woman without it?

Melanie: Well, no because the more I read about the religion the more I was convinced and then I learnt that it was preferable for the Muslim woman to be discrete…to be modest. Furthermore, I read this verse about the veil (hijab) and I was like “ah, there we go!” I didn’t know I was expected to…wear the veil after all I am saying like it I said it in my book. And then I thought to myself, “no, that’s weird, I can’t do this.” I remembered having walked on the beach and saying to myself, “Melanie, you realize that God is the creator of the sky, the sun and the rain.” He asks you that and you hassle,” and I thought, “Ok, let’s just give it a try.”

TV: But God hasn’t obliged you to wear it. There are some Muslim women who don’t wear it.

Melanie: Well, at that time, I didn’t really see the difference between the obliged or recommended so I covered myself but since I didn’t know any Muslim women who actually wore a veil (hijab) so I said to myself, “I’m going to wear a small headband, a hoodie, prove modesty and then after that, it was all about reading and learning more things every day.

TV: Suddenly, your conversion was something very private that nobody else knew about.

Melanie: No!

TV: Nobody else knew?

Melanie: My family and close relationships had been informed when I was deciding to convert to Islam. I informed them. I informed the people I worked with and they knew that I would be overwhelmed by the scandalous media.

TV: By a photo…?

Melanie: Precisely, it was a disaster. We saw those pictures as I was coming out of a mosque…

TV: …and the world finds out that “Diams la rappeur” wears a veil.

Melanie: Yeah, that was…that was stealing. They stole me. They stole a private bit of my life. They stole…

TV: And your mother…?

Melanie: My mother has never seen me dressed like this neither have my grandparents or my uncle or my friends of course, all my close relatives were lost but the people that worked with me…I pretty much lost a huge amount of my team because nobody trusted me.

TV: And they said that you were a risk to a whole generation, to all the young girls who had followed you in Rap.

Melanie: Anyway; when a young girl converts to Islam, people think that she is either indoctrinated or she has been forced by her husband…as if we have no autonomy over our lives or intellectual independence. That’s quite new…isn’t it? That’s what I was accused of, they made me look like someone who always defended women and their rights and that wasn’t true just to say even today, I can still fight for women and the inequalities and the unfairness. I don’t see where the problem is. You see nowadays, these are the confusion that has been made.

TV: The broadmix between spirituality, radical Islamism and terrorism.

Melanie: It’s the broadmix between the ‘ignorant’ and the ‘learned.’ There are people who are ignorant and shouldn’t talk. “When you talk about something, you have to know what you are talking about.”

TV: You wrote that this religion (Islam) is only presented to the world via extremist groups and bombings have extremely shocked you.

Melanie: Yes, completely because that is not what I have seen. ‘I have seen a religion of wisdom, non-violence, peace, sharing and most of all…kindness!” It’s the religion of Jesus, Moses, Abraham, Solomon…of all the prophets. Why do people make us look like that? It is not acceptable for innocent people to die when attacked/bombed. It’s unthinkable that a believer (Muslim) would do these kinds of things.

TV: It is a complicated matter to be veiled in France nowadays.

Melanie: Well…it stays a free country in the sense that I am allowed to wear my scarf and be veiled and all of that but…people’s prejudice, nastiness, case of mind over matter…make one feel tired.

TVSo why did you leave Rap? Was it a constraint or a choice?

Melanie: No, not really. It’s true bit by bit I realized that I am living a peaceful life now, living a family life.

TV: After all, you have been a mother for a couple months.

Melanie: Yes, I am a mother.

TV: And does it seem impossible for you to rap with a veil?

Melanie: No, I don’t see myself rapping like this. I don’t think I’d fit.

TV: But rapping is not in contradiction with your religion.

Melanie: Not exactly, it’s just that I am living on a peaceful life now. I’ve lost all my old attitudes and emotions. All of a sudden, I realized that I used to write lyrics with very negative emotions such as anger. It was a tool. It motivated me. I’m no longer angry.

TV: What is your daily life now? You have a little girl.

Melanie: Ah! Well, I live in a small village.

TV: You are a mother.

Melanie: I am a mother, I am happy…I am a friend, I am a wife.

TV: Did you find friends from before?

Melanie: Ah yes, I found my friends again…Charlotte.

TV: Did you lose friends during your time of fame?

Melanie: Yeah! I’ve lost a lot.

TV: So do you think this is a break for you? Is it a bracket in your life? And the book ends with the main information saying that you are very happy, now.

Melanie: Yes, ah yes. I am so happy that…I have a joy in my heart that they (media) cannot steal from me neither by photos or attacks…or any of that. I have faith.

TV: Thank you Diams…

Melanie: Thank you too…

TV: Thank you Melanie instead…

Melanie: Thank you too…thank you.


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