Cover image: Mr. Kayz in the Combo Café Chill Room (detail)
© Entrée to Black Paris

I am not a fan of hip-hop music.

When I engage in conversation about this, I am frequently known to say that the genre "lost me after 'The Message.'"

Yet, because I work with youth who come to Paris for travel abroad experiences, and because youth need to be met "where they are," I feel that I need to have at least a rudimentary understanding of this music.

So, when I learned about Airbnb's "Explore Paris's hip-hop scene with rapper Mr Kayz," I signed up.

On the morning of July 21, I made my way to the the 18th arrondissement to receive my primer in what has become an integral part of France's musical scene.

Though the Web page describes the locale as the Combo Café and recording studio, I wasn't prepared for what I found there.

Café Combo
© Entrée to Black Paris

At the entrance, visitors immediately encounter the café counter.  But moving farther into the room, you find a wall lined with music awards on one side and work stations with cassette players and tapes (yes, you read that right) on the other.  

Music awards
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Album display and cassette players
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Cassette players and tapes
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Behind this area lies a turntable, a small display of albums, and Studio 1.  The studio was in use that morning.

Turntable and albums
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When I arrived, Mr. Kayz was watching two adolescent boys trying to figure out how to work the cassette players.  He and the boys' mother were equally amused.

Mr. Kayz finally showed them how the devices worked, and then bought everyone the refreshment of their choice before leading us downstairs.

Mr. Kayz going downstairs
© Entrée to Black Paris

He showed us the "chill room" (where musicians can sit in quiet contemplation) and Studio 2 before ushering us into Studio 3.

Mr. Kayz in the Chill Room
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This is where our experience unfolded.

The Web page refers to Mr Kayz as a "rapper, lyricist, and beat-maker whose sharp lyricism and bold sonic identity reflect the pulse of Paris’s underground scene."  He is a tall man of U.S. and Congolese origin who grew up in France and experienced the birth of hip-hop in this country. For the first hour or so, he presented the history and evolution of French hip-hop by telling stories and showing videos to illustrate the cross pollination that occurred between artists in France and the U.S.

Searching for a video
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He was careful to explain how the music served as a source of identity for young Black people in a nation where no statistics are kept regarding race and the word itself has been stricken from the constitution.

Then, he turned to the hands-on part of the experience, beginning with demonstrating one of the digital tools used to create music from samples.

Sampling tool
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The two young men create rap music in the U.S., so they were already familiar with what we were shown. 

Demonstrating the sampling tool
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While they set about mixing samples to generate clips, Mr. Kayz worked with the boys' mom and me to create songs using AI.  Each of us gave him elements of a story we wanted to convert into a song, and the platform worked its magic.  In just a few minutes, two versions of the tunes derived from our stories were ready for listening. 

Everyone listened to and enjoyed all the music produced during that last hour.  When it was time to go, we were able to download the audio files on our phones as an acoustic reminder of our time together.

Mr. Kayz told us that we did not need to rush to leave, and we all ended up spending an extra hour in conversation with him!

To book your experience with Mr. Kayz, click HERE.

Mr. Kayz
© Entrée to Black Paris