ABSTRACT
Our study will focus on rap music composed and sung in the Hassaniyya Arabic dialect currently spoken in Mauritania among the Moors.1 Mauritania is a multiethnic country where several languages co-exist; rap sung in Hassaniyya appeared in the early 2000s. Lyrics in the other languages spoken in the country such as Wolof, Pulaar or Bambara, had emerged a few years before, but Soninké is still missing from the local scene. Rap is the favorite form of expression of the young people who live in large city working-class neighborhoods and surrounding shanty towns. Its very existence and contents signal the beginning of significant changes, both in the status of music and the traditional organization of society.
