Rapper Diam’s has sold millions of CDs documenting the poverty and racism blighting urban France. But fame took its toll when she was hit by depression. Now recording again, she puts her recovery down to her Muslim faith. Colin Randall, foreign correspondent, reports from Paris

As France’s best-selling rap singer, now currently touring provincial cities, Diam’s should be prowling the stage in a hoodie, looking hard as nails and firing up her young audiences with angry lyrics about hardships in the banlieue and the wickedness of the establishment.

But on her long-awaited new album, and in live performances of its material, the rhetoric against war, racism and injustice is punctuated by words that reflect an important development in her life: her decision to convert to Islam and confront prejudice by wearing a veil.   »»» The National Newspaper (Abu Dhabi)

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