President’s son joins anti-Sarko rap crew

When he was Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy became the bete noir of France's hip-hop scene by ordering the prosecution of several rappers for insulting the police and forging ahead with his drive to "clean out the layabouts" from the estates. Now a family insider has joined the crew of hardcore French rappers who hate the President with a passion: Pierre, Sarkozy's 23-year-old son.

Sarko junior has been outed as a hip-hop producer who goes by the moniker Mosey. Pierre, who is one of Sarkozy's two sons from his first marriage to Marie-Dominique Culioli, has written a song for Poison, one of the angriest and most vocal rap artists to come out of the Paris suburbs. In an anti-Sarkozy video with other rap singers issued last year, Poison chanted: "Anti-Sarko, anti-right, Nicolas don't you hear. We're anti-you."

Pierre may have agreed to stop wearing his dreadlocks for the sake of Sarkozy's presidential campaign, but the former law student has persisted in a musical career. He runs his own label, Crime Chantilly, a play on Creme Chantilly (whipped cream), and describes himself on his MySpace page as "Mosey, a young Parisian producer, with my crew: da Crime Chantilly, we produce hip hop, soul and r'n'b beatz." (Continued below)

Although it had been rumoured on the French rap scene for some time that Sarko's son was a hip-hop producer, his identity was only revealed yesterday in a radio interview with Poison, who confirmed Sarkozy/Mosey had written the track for his forthcoming album Mec de Tess (Guy from the 'Hood). Poison (whose name is pronounced the English way) told hip-hop station Radio Generations: "The guy brought me some music. I didn't know at the start that it was the son of Sarko. When I found out, I blew a fuse and phoned him. He said 'Yeah, but Poison, I didn't wanna tell you 'cos you wouldn't wanna hang out wid me no more'."

Meanwhile, Pierre's father is set to hold a two-hour press conference today where he is likely to face tough questions about the economy, his reform programme and a much-rumoured February wedding to model-turned-actress Carla Bruni.