Clermont-Ferrand (AFP) – A song by the Auvergne group Wazoo, covered on the dams by farmers, has established itself on social networks in recent days, becoming the anthem symbol of this agricultural crisis.
Published on: 02/01/2024 – 6:35 p.m. Modified on: 02/01/2024 – 6:55 p.m.
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On Thursday, the song simply called “Farmers”, was ranked fourth among the most popular songs on Tik Tok, with Aya Nakamura.
“We do not fear work, for worse for better, the land is at the bottom of our hearts. Because we are farmers”, sings the folk group Wazoo from Clermont-Ferrand in this ode to the peasant world which opened its sixth album in 2019.
“The song is well covered on Tik Tok and even Instagram. Farmers film themselves on the dams using it to illustrate their videos,” singer Jeff Chalaffre explained to AFP. The clip, which features young farmers from Haute-Loire, already had 3.5 million views on YouTube before the movement, he said.
“We notice that 50% of the views on our channel are young people between 18 and 35 years old, therefore younger than the generation with which we started,” he says happily.
The group “flag-bearer of farmers” claims “rural music” which “has always been (its) niche”: “As rap sings its context, urban music, we sing the countryside which is our context”, underlines the singer.
But beyond this unexpected success, “the feeling that dominates is compassion, we are taken aback by what is happening and necessarily united, because agriculture is the last rampart of a France that forms a society”, he said.
“We are not surprised by the revolt”: “the farmers came to see us at the concerts to talk to us about their income, about the Egalim law which was not applied,” he says.
Farmers block a highway near Chilly-Mazarin, south of Paris, January 31, 2024 © EMMANUEL DUNAND / AFP
Wazoo, who is celebrating 25 years on stage, is also preparing to release a new album still full of promise for the rural world since it is entitled “a calf that heads well does not need hay”.
© 2024 AFP
2024-02-01 17:57:37
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