TK and YL: meeting of punchliners!

In rap, short films are the “new black.” It’s the big trend of the moment. TK has just made his comeback with a huge featuring with YL. In 2022, the Marseille rapper released the album “Avant la fête” with features from Enima, Lujipeka, Aymane Serhani, and Zaho. YL and TK set their collaboration under the banner of pure rap without frills, delivering powerful verses in every sense of the word. A few months ago, the two artists had unveiled the track “Carla” together.

“Hakim”: the short film by TK and YL!

Moubarak, Kofs before the release of “Après Minuit”, and RK recently, rappers particularly love scripted clips or albums. Some of them, like Kofs, have had exceptional careers in cinema alongside their evolution in rap, while others, like ZKR before the release of his latest project, are making their entry into the seventh art. Storytelling is becoming increasingly popular.

If Médine dedicated the title of his album “Storyteller” to this exercise, and he is one of the masters of the genre with his saga “Les enfants du destin”, you have to go back to the 90s-00s to see the most famous storytelling examples, like “Guilty Conscience” by Eminem and Dr. Dre, which resulted in an exceptional visual.

TK and YL tell the story of “Hakim” with the backdrop of the ordinary youth of a neighborhood in Marseille. With their lyrical ease, they both describe the essence of the malaise that drives thousands of young people towards “débrouillardise” (hustling).

TK and YL: meeting of punchliners!

The instrumental composition of the track is signed by Farukqsm. The Parisian beatmaker has collaborated a lot with Jul, notably on the tracks “Zone à risque”, “Love de moi”, and “J’ai le démon”. He also composed the track “Sport de riche” by Sadek and “Briiips Vol. 2” by Gips. The production is “classic”, composed of a piano sample and a rather old school rhythm. The two rappers revel in delivering ultra-relevant punchlines.

For TK, it’s clear: “I bet on friendships that weren’t very profitable” and “I needed to breathe but there was smoke everywhere”. The two men tell the story of Hakim, which is nothing extraordinary; it’s the story of ordinary youth lost in problems.

The highly scripted visual is the work of Fabibi, a Marseille-based director apparently close to AM La Scampia.