HK, the singer of “Danser encore”, the rallying hymn of the “non-essentials”

A written text “like a cry from the heart”, in the face of the contempt felt towards the cultural milieu. “We think, on the contrary, that we are all essential. It is a terrible message that is sent to us, as if, in France, we could only work and consume. And it is wrong to say that we cannot can not do otherwise: there are European countries, like Spain or Germany, for a while, which did otherwise. ”

Posted on December 18, 2020, To dance again has become the rallying hymn of those who demand the return of cultural activities. “We have to find a way to continue living despite this pandemic. We are social beings and we need to come together, to dance, to sing”, continues Kaddour Hadadi, for whom “generalized malaise” is no less important than the pandemic. For HK, “to heal the body while neglecting the heart” has no sense.

But the singer was far from imagining such a success. In a few weeks, the song has toured movements protesting health restrictions and confinement, through organized operations, in Chambéry, Marseille, Clermont-Ferrand or Saint-Brieuc. The hit of the pandemic has also become the means of mobilization in music for artists and precarious people who have occupied part of public theaters for several weeks now. On March 12, we heard the song performed on the forecourt of the occupied Théâtre du Nord in Lille.

Of “protest rallies” where barrier gestures and wearing a mask are not always customary. The group’s performance at Les Vans en Ardèche on March 20, which brought together 2,000 people on the market place, without masks, had particularly been noticed in this regard. None of these gatherings have yet made it possible to notice the emergence of a cluster.

Anyway, then again, HK has a ready-made answer to this complaint. “It is nothing compared to the people who pile up every day in the transportations”, he says, still traumatized by a rush hour trip in line 13.

A success somewhat in spite of himself, which recalls that of its title We loose nothing, has become the anthem of all events, from pensions to yellow vests through the Global Security law. Here too, the title has a political genesis. “It was when Sarko was still president, he said about a strike: ‘Now, when there is a strike in France, nobody notices’.” A message that had struck his Roubaisien soul. “I come from Roubaix, a former working-class city. I saw this flourishing city sinking” as factories closed.

“It was a bit the same, I wrote the song in one go in reaction to that line”, remembers Kaddour Hadadi who confides in having for mantra the slogan of May 68: “The action should not be a reaction, but a creation.”