Maître Gims – "Bella" (French pop song) video, partial lyrics, & comments)

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post showcases the French pop song "Bella" by Maître Gims.

Information about Maître Gims is included in this post along with information about this song, partial lyrics (translated from French & Verlan to English) and a YouTube video.

I've also included a brief review of the portion I read of that video's discussion thread and selected comments from that portion of that video's comments.

This post is presented for linguistics, socio-cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Maître Gims for his musical contribution. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publisher of this video on YouTube.

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INFORMATION ABOUT MAITRE GIMS
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma%C3%AEtre_Gims
"Gandhi Djuna (born 6 May 1986), better known by his stage name Maître Gims, is a French rapper and singer of Congolese descent. He is a former member of the hip-hop group Sexion d'Assaut, and has developed a solo career with a major release, his solo album Subliminal and his cousin Mario Kalinovic is also his producer.

Career
Gandhi Djuna, born in Kinshasa (DRC) with his brother, immigrated to France when he was just two years old. .... Taking the name of Gims, he rapped at college with his friends of Sexion d'Assaut while studying communication and graphical arts."...

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From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subliminal_(album)
Subliminal is the debut solo album of French rapper Maître Gims, member of the French rap group Sexion d'Assaut. The 18-track album was released 20 May 2013 on Wati B and on MMC, the latter founded by Maître Gims himself. The lyrics were all by Maître Gims whereas the music was by Maître Gims, Renaud Rebillaud and Stan-E Music. The album was a big success charting in France (reaching #2), Belgium (reaching #1) as well as charting in Switzerland.

On 2 December 2013, he re-released the album with six additional tracks he called La face cachée (the hidden face) for a total of 24 tracks, resulting in further interest in the album.

By 31 August 2015, the album had accumulated a total of more than 1,000,000 copies sold in France."...
-snip-
"Bella" is track #17 on that album.

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PARTIAL LYRICS - BELLA
(as written and sung by Maitre Gims; translated from French to English)

..."Yes,it's a phenomenon who likes to haunt our dreams
That woman was called, Bella the golden-skinned
Women hated her, and others envied her
But men could only love her
She wasn't a homegirl, neither easy nor difficult
Synonymous of "gorgeous", to her feet : only disciples
Whom quickly became undecided, trembling like leaves
She caressed you without even touching you
But when I see her dancing the evening
I'd like to be that chair on which she sits
Or less than that, a loser
Just a stone on her way

She answered to the name of Bella
The local people didn't want to let her go
She captivated all the villages
People was saying to me : "Be careful about that girl"...

Source: http://lyricstranslate.com/en/bella-bella-beauty.html

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SHOWCASE VIDEO - Maître Gims – Bella



MaitreGimsVEVO, Published on Jun 19, 2013
-snip-
As of 7:38 AM (DST) this video had the following statistics:
281,443,993 [total number of views]

776,692 [thumbs up] 63,290 [thumbs down]

[total number of] comments - 52,518

****
MY EDITORIAL COMMENTS ABOUT THE COMMENTS THAT I READ FROM THAT VIDEO'S DISCUSSION THREAD
As noted above, the embedded video of Maitre Gim's "Bella" has a huge number of viewers and a very large number of commenters. Although I didn't count the number of those comments that I read, it probably was in the early thousands.

Judging from the comments that I read in that discussion thread, many people throughout the world are familiar with Maitre Gims' "Bella". Some people love it, lots of people like it, a considerable number of people dislike it, and some people hate it for one reason or another.

I learned about Maitre Gims' "Bella" song yesterday as a result of a search for French rap songs. I started that search after publishing a pancocojams post on Verlan (French slang) which I read is often used in French rap. Although Maitre Gims is identified in the Wikipedia page (whose link is given above) as a French rapper, "Bella" isn't a rap song.

Given that Maitre Gims is a French man who was born in the Democratic Republic Of The Congo, some commenters wondered if racism against Black people was the reason why a number of people dislike his performance of "Bella". Quite a few commenters in the portion of the discussion thread that whose refuted this theory saying that what they disliked was Gim's commercialism and what many of them referred to as the song's "sh&tty"* lyrics. [As per the policy of this blog, amended spelling is given for profanity]. Many of those comments were made in response to non-French speakers writing that they loved how the song sounds.

One commenter in the portion of comments that I read criticized this video because Maitre Grims was the only Black person in the video. One commenter responding to this criticism writing that it was racist and anyway Maitre Grims had another video that mostly featured Black people.

Most of the comments that I read in the discussion thread were written in French. I used "Google translate" to get the English translation of those comments.

A few times in the portion of this discussion thread that I read, an English speaking commenter would write "English comment passing through". That would start a sub-thread of comments in English. Another sub-thread of comments that I read began with someone writing if there were any Latinos in this discussion. However, at some point, that sub-thread changed to people from non- Latino nations indicating the country that they were from (such as Saudi Arabia, Poland, and Armenia). While some people identified themselves throughout that discussion thread as being from the United States, there were no comments from people who identified themselves as being from any African nation other than North Africa - An exception to that statement might be the commenter who wrote that he or she was an "African from Sweden passing through". I also didn't find any comments from any Caribbean nation, but (as I indicated above) there were some comments from some South American nations.

A number of people who studying French in school wrote that they had a difficult time understanding the lyrics for Maitre Gims' "Bella". Quite a number of native French speakers agreed that they also didn't understand many of the words used in that song. Some commenters wrote that the reason for this, beyond the fact that Gims' sung fast, was that some of the words in that song were in Verlans (French slang). For the record, no pun intended, it appeared to me that there were only a few comments in that video's discussion thread that included Verlans words. Furthermore, only a few comments that I read had the Arabic/French words "je kiff[e]". In contrast, in that portion of that discussion thread that I read, there were more comments that included the (no longer used by African Americans that way) Black slang term "cool" (meaning "very good.) And there were even more commenters who used other terms that are still currently "in" [I think] among African Americans slang terms such as "dope" and "fire" and/or drawings of flames. "Dope" and "fire" and a drawings of flames mean that in those commenter's opinion that song was "very good"/"hot".

Without further editorial notes, here are some examples of those types of comments from that video's discussion thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMltoD1jCGI

These comments given in relative chronological order with the oldest comments given first, except for replies. This compilation doesn't purport to be the complete comments from any of these sub-threads (indicated by "replies").

These comments are numbered for referencing purposes only.

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SELECTED COMMENTS FROM THIS VIDEO'S DISCUSSION THREAD

2014
1. Ayoitsthatkid
"Why are people hating him because he is black?"

**
Reply
2. Martin V
"its called racism"

**
Reply
3. com_plaining
"People aren't hating on him because he is black but because his music is shi&&y*"
-snip-
*That word was fully spelled out in this comment.

**
Reply
4. ana colda
"ANd what about hating him? People are stupid and do not apreciate a real value. I like his music."

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5. LoSJK
"+ana colda A real value ? Are you serious ? His lyrics suck. The voice is autotuned. The hole music sucks."

**
Reply
6. Junubia
"His lyrics are shi&&y*? I don't understand a word of French, so it sounds pretty good to me lol."
-snip-
*This word was fully spelled out in this comment.

**
Reply
7. Luda Na
"+Laurine SJK Oh yeah. Gims sucks we're ok about it x)
For people who don't speak french : Trust me, the lyrics sucks. Really. And autotune ... He destroyed my eaaaars ! This is not music. This is not art. This is commerce only ;)"

**
Reply
8. Junubia
"+Laurine SJK I just looked up the lyrics in English. From my understanding its about a girl who captivated everyone with her beauty. Women envied her, men wanted her. Ultimately she used her beauty to the detriment of others.
I think its pretty deep.
But I'm American. Maybe because of people like Justin Bieber and Lil Wayne, everything sounds good comparatively. LOL"

**
Reply
9. Astrathena
"We don't hate because he is black, we hate his stupid texts. I'm French and I can say that the lyrics are just ... Pathetic."

**
Reply
10. Luda Na
"Maître Gims doesnt rap."

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11. John Smith
"+Fantasy.Isotope Only in crappy music videos like this a re blacks getting white girls"

**
Reply
12. Aziz Ahmed
"+Ayoitsthatkid typical white people, always jealous"

**
Reply
13. Abdulsamet Gunal
"don't worry we are not racist ;)
i like malcolm x, che, ghandi, blah..."

**
Reply
14. Karakolev
"If I was racist I wouldn't listen to Ice Cube, Eazy E, 2pac, Snoop Dogg, RickRoss, Wiz Khalifa and all of the black skinned rappers.."

**
Reply
15. Ayoitsthatkid
"Just because you listen to black singers doesn't mean you are not racist...."

**
Reply
16. Ayoitsthatkid
"Or a bigot"

**
Reply
17. "Ayoitsthatkid I got friends that are black :)..and I treat them like white people.."

**
Reply
18. Ayoitsthatkid
"+Karakolev` This comment proves that you are a bigot"

**.
Reply
19. Karakolev`
"+Ayoitsthatkid bigot, w0t?"

**
Reply
20. Zolane - Elly Skidda
"Is not because he is black"

**
Reply
21. Misterboy02
"it's not because he is black, because he sings like sh&t"*
-snip-
*This word was fully spelled out in this comment.

**
Reply
22. Dżuliette Daw
"can be black but if muslim then sh&t"*
-snip-
*This word was fully spelled out in this comment.

**
23. Reply
oumayma elkarzazi
"come on this is called racism ... and then whoo cares if he is muslim or christian or something else.we are human we must respest each other we must respect religions Sooo please stop sayins this judgement because it hurts ..besides it's useless"

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Reply
24. Fadi Eissa-Darwish
"+Shamanniac1 non , c'est la vérité que je tu dis :v
J'ai beaucoup d'amis et des hommes que je les connais bien en France
et tu sais bien le racisme contre les Arabes dans la France
Je m'excuse de les fautes de grammaire"
-snip-
Translated from French to English by Google translate:
"+ Shamanniac1 no, it is the truth that I say: v
I have many friends and men that I know well in France
And you know the racism against the Arabs in France
I apologize for grammatical errors"

**
Reply
25. Shamanniac, SJW bien-pensant
"+EISSA PROD C'est sûr il y a du racisme en france ! Comme partout. Je disais juste que ce message c'est de la provocation car évidemment les gens ne détestent pas Gim's parce qu'il est noir, plutôt parce qu'il est devenu très commercial à mon avis..."
-snip-
Translated from French to English by Google translate:
"+ EISSA PROD Sure, there is racism in France! Like everywhere. I just said that this message is provocation because of course people do not hate Gim's because it is black, rather because it has become very commercial in my opinion ..."

**
Reply
26. Shamanniac, SJW bien-pensant
"+Bubumeilichan T'as de la chance de pas avoir subi le racisme, c'est clair qu'il y en a. Mais si certains insultent ce pays c'est pas simplement par ingratitude comme tu dis. Il faut bien voir que certains sont beaucoup moins bien accueillis que toi..."
-snip-
Translated from French to English by Google translate:
"+ Bubumeilichan You are lucky not to have suffered racism, it is clear that there are. But if some insult this country it is not simply because of ingratitude as you say. We must see that some are much less welcome than you ..."

**
Reply
27. Shamanniac, SJW bien-pensant
"+Bubumeilichan Je t'assure que tu as eu beaucoup de chance de ne jamais voir de racisme. Je connais des noirs et des arabes qui l'ont souvent subi, et ils n'ont pas l'impression que la France à fait quelque chose pour eux. Ils ont juste eu accès aux mêmes choses que tous les autres Français ce qui est simplement normal."
-snip-
Translated from French to English by Google translate:
"+ Bubumeilichan I assure you that you were very lucky to never see racism. I know blacks and Arabs who have often suffered, and they do not feel that France has done anything for them. They just had access to the same things as all the other French people which is just normal."

**
Reply
28. lotfi houcine, 2017
"Moi je le respecte c est un grand chanteur"
-snip-
Translated from French to English by Google translate:
"I respect it c is a great singer"

**
Reply
29. Huntez Gaming, 2017
"Ayoitsthatkid no just learn French the lyrics suck"

**
Reply
30. Cristina Adsc, 2017
"people don't hate him! he is one of the most popular singer in france and he received lots of love and support"

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2015
31. KiD LUCKiE
"Just an African that lives in sweden passing through..."

**
Reply
32. Le Palmier de chez MrAntoineDaniel
"+KiD LUCKiE omg if another african that lives in sweden find this message, he would be very happy"

**
Reply
33. Sandra A
"Waddup fellow swede, jag är inte afrikan though lel
-snip-
"Waddup" is a form of the African American Vernacular English greeting term "What's up".

"jag är inte afrikan" translated from Swedish to English = "I'm not African".

"lel" may be a typo for the internet term "lol" [laughing out loud]

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2016
34. Marion Anthony "Fat Tony" D'Amico
"Who else thought it would be cool to type in "french rap" "

**
Reply
35. Andy Zhang
"That's literally what I did lmao"

**
Reply
36. greySTEAM
"seemed like a good idea...."

**
Reply
37. Infinity
"typed "best french rap""

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Reply
38. Idilique òwó
"This is not french rap."

**
Reply
39. Odba Labrada
"thats exactly wut i put on the youtube search bar then "maîte gims" came up and i started listening to his songs"

**
Reply
40. Britain Wells
"You all should look up Booba, Damso, Gradur, Kaaris... all fire 🔥🔥"

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Reply
41. Alexandre Inconnu
"If you search the really french rap please go to I AM : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27%C3%89cole_du_micro_d%27argent the best french rap ever"

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Reply
42. rephael reyes
"I thought there was no way french rap would exist, that's why I've searched it :P"

**
Reply
43. Iman A
"you'd be surprised to see how much french rap music there is"

**
Reply
44. Jorge Castro
"Marion Anthony "Fat Tony" D'Amico I dont understand what they say but french rap is dope"

**
Reply
45. Pamela Enyonu
"I am just happy to find a comment in English."

**
46. Jennifer aldana
"I only understand bella shella and village and i'm the best in my frenchclass😂👏🏻"

**
Reply
47. Aimée Moore
"actually, "Shella" it's the verlan of , like lâcher = cher'lâ"

Yes....complicated . XD
-snip-
The French word "lâcher" = "letting go"

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/04/verlan-french-slang-and-use-of-word.html for a pancocojams post on Verlan (French slang).

**
Reply
48. Mariana Lima
"I heard "cherche", "le soir", "difficile", "magnifique", "même", "pour moi", "la tête", that's all I've got xD"

**
Reply
49. Mariana Lima
"+Aimée Moore why does verlan even exist? It's so weird"

**
Reply
50. Aimée Moore
"I don't even know XD There is the word louche which means fishy, the verlan of this word is chelou (a word who is very use by teens, contrary of louche) BUT chelou means more weird than fishy. Cher'lâ is not very use, like, the first time I heard this song, I don't understand what does Maitre Gims say. The verlan is not officialy correct. (I have make any grammatical mistakes in English? )"

**
Reply
51. ED86
"Well I have been speaking english for 16 years and I cant understand Wiz Khalifa or Drake..."
-snip-
Wiz Khalifa is an African American rapper and Drake is a Canadian R&B/Hip Hop singer.

**
52. Zont26
"Just an English comment passing through..."

**
Reply
53. Elie Isso
"I was waiting for one.

**
Reply
54. Brennan Thornhill
"Was searching 4 1"

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55. marie rofou
"hi 😊😊"

**
Reply
56. MORNET Etienne
"hi english comment"

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Reply
57. Ilovecheese
"+BAKERBONK It's good to see some english speakers :)"

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Reply
58. BAKERBONK
"Yeah :)"

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Reply
59. Hilda Isabeles
"im usa citizen"

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Reply
60. King Joe
"Same here fam"
-snip-
"fam" is a clip of the word "family". "Fam" appears to be currently "in" among African Americans and non-African Americans as an gender inclusive referent for people who share some kind of connection to you (whether it be biological, national, racial, ethnic, community, regional etc.)

**
Reply
61. Th3BlindRebel
"Sameeeee"

**
62. Cap Reed Crusader1210
"+Zont26 another English comment passing through"

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Reply
63. Cameron's Vlogs
"+Zont26 Yeah Boy. Ignorant Americans are smart enough to appreciate good French music :) I'm one of them. But I'm less ignorant than most Americans. We are So So So screwed in a few months. Cheers Russia."

**
Reply
64. Deborah F
"+Zont26 so this is the English comment section"

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Reply
65. Sheeza Ejaz
"So this was probably already mentioned in the French comments but since I'm 'murican, I thought I'd ask in English. DOES ANYONE WANT TO TALK ABOUT HOW SMOKING HOT THE GIRL IS IN THIS VIDEO??"

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66. salim diab
"6 years of French class n I've understand nothing! daf&q*
-snip-
*This colloquial form of a common profanity phrase is fully spelled out in this comment..

**
Reply
67. Emile Patte
"Aha that's normal, lyrics are complicate for french."

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Reply
68. Gaelle
"It s not academic words"

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Reply
69. Gametime
"First, french speaked is totally different from French written and the french you learn at school. And second, It's a music, so it's a bit more complicated."

**
Reply
70. ChippiE PivV
"I'm french and I don't understand; so no worries"

**
Reply
71. Tripple 7
"You will never learn those lyrics in class, they are pretty hard to understand, and their meanin are worst.. it has a second story deeper in the lyrics"

**
Reply
72. emine momo, 2017
"cause this is the slang french not the school french. he speaks about a girl which is called bella because of her beauty ;)"

**
Reply
73. SMAIL MUTLULUK, 2017
"salim diab bcuz thats african way of speaking french hhhhhh"

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Reply
74. Tedultra18, 2017
"+Alexandre Rault Faut pas exagérer, il n'y a que trois mots de verlan : iench, iep et chéla.
Respectivement chien, pied et lâcher."
-snip-
translation from French to English
"+ Alexandre Rault Do not exaggerate, there are only three words of verlan: iench, iep and chela. Respectively dog, foot and let go."

**
75. Trippy Jimbob
"240 million views and I've never even heard of this geeza before"
-snip-
"geeza" is probably a form of the word "geezer" which usually means "old man". However, my guess is that "geeza" here is a relatively neutral term for "dude".

**
Reply
76. BlertaK
"I was thinking the same. Heard it for the first time."

**
Reply
77. Akin Sumer
"This song was very famous in french country"

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78. ImDrunq
"Maybe because it's a french song?"

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Reply
79. juste kevin
"+Messi Menon Was very famous in 2013. But since that time nobody listen to this song anymore in france. I think there are more foreigners that listen to this than french."

**
80. Maimouna Datt
"Trop cool"

**
81. NAKMEEZY
"As popular as this guy is you'd think he would at least have a black Bella or more people of color in this video. Only thing black in this video is him and the rims on the Lamborghini."

**
Reply
82. NAKMEEZY
"Lmaooooo I realized the bull was black after my comment. Good eye!"

**
Reply
83. Imen Toumi
"you can watch his song ''sapé comme jamais'' if u want black people. There's some diversity lol"

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Reply
84. zTundra
"He lives in a country where 88% of the population is white... what did you expect?"

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Reply
85. NAKMEEZY
"I expect him or his management team to acknowledge the 12pct that are not represented in this video. You could at least fit one more black and a Morrocan in there."

**
Reply
86. simplythebest286
"not everybody thinks about skin color like racist americans !!!!"

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Reply
87. FruityCandy
"+simplythebest286 Are you brainless? Your stupidity is astounding."

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2017
88. Jihen Henia
"chapeau!!!!! j'ai rien a dire que waaaaaaaawwww!!! c'est de la pûre bombe!!!"
-snip-
translated by Google translate from French to English
"hat!!!!! I have nothing to say that waaaaaaaawwww !!! It's the bomb!"
-snip-
"The bomb" is a no longer used (by African American) term that means "very good". Instead, the current superlatives that (I believe) African Americans use are "the sh&t*" and "fire".

**
89. S. N
"je apprendre français at la classe. I am taking french at school and want to ameliorer so I guess this'll help. it's hard tho"

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Reply
90. Suis-je un Geek ?
"Je corrige :
J'apprends le français en classe. Je parle français à l'école et je veux l'améliorer donc je devine que ceci aidra.
C'est difficile. (Idk what "tho" means)"
-snip-
This commenter is correcting the French that was used by S.N.

**
Reply
91. Lysa :3
"S. N Yeah but there's some words you can't uderstand, in french we say "verlan" for exemple in this donc "bête comme les iep" normally it's "bête comme les pieds" i don't know how to say it in english"

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Reply
92. Azizi Powell
" "tho" = "though", but in that sentence 'tho" means "however"."

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Amy Balcome
93. "je kiff bella
en pasant fait un titre pour moi❤🙈"

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94. Laure Mecoeur
"je t adore je te kiff grave"

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95. Calixta dOreye
"super cool"

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96. Levent Kacmaz
"so bad"
-snip-
"Bad" here can have its standard negative meaning or it could be an incorrectly used example of the African American Vernacular English positive meaning of that word, a slang term that African Americans haven't used since at least the 1990s.

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