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Le Ministère des Affaires Populaire -- or simply M.A.P., as they're often known -- are a politically charged French rap group whose musical style incorporates violin and accordion and consequently is sometimes tagged as rap-musette. Founded in the metropolitan area of Lille, Nord-Pas de Calais, the group is of Algerian heritage and comprised of rappers Dias and <a href="spotify:artist:4NLRYOb9UpbCP4pPMJA47q">HK</a>, plus musicians Jeoffrey Arnone (accordion) and Hacène Khelifa (violin). M.A.P. made their full-length album debut in 2006 with Debout là d'Dans on the Pias label. Produced in collaboration with Lille-based beatmaker Axiom, Debout là d'Dans reached number 136 on the French albums chart and earned the group favorable comparisons to fellow musette-styled French rap group Java. The four-track Grain d'Sel EP followed in 2007, and the title track was one of the ten songs preselected to compete for representation of France at the Eurovision Song Contest. The second full-length M.A.P. album, Les Bronzés Font du Ch'ti (2009), was produced in collaboration with beatmaker Stanko Fat and was partly inspired by a journey to Palestine in 2008. ~ Jason Birchmeier, Rovi