Antwerp (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – ‘Cocaine’: that’s the name of the new single by Antwerp city troubadour Tourist LeMC. Tourist LeMC presents a confronting view of drug presence within his Antwerp hometown through this musical release. “
Tourist LeMC from Antwerp recently released Cocaine as his new single about drug addiction throughout his hometown. Through its mix of salsa rhythmic guitars and horns, the song creates a positive musical foundation while delivering sobering lyrics about Cocaine’s extensive presence in Antwerp.
As Tourist LeMC, also known as Johannes Faes, emphasises, he avoids passing moral judgments on drug users while focusing on raising societal knowledge about drugs. Recent drug-related violence in the city, including shootings and explosions, became personal to him after many incidents occurred near his home.
In stark contrast to the cheerful music, Tourist LeMC describes in the lyrics how cocaine is ubiquitous in Antwerp.
“My boyfriend, wife and father are all customers,” he says. “Cocaine is hanging on everything.”
“I’ll see you after yoga” is a reference to the term ‘yoga sniffers‘ by Antwerp mayor Bart De Wever. Antwerp describes Tourist LeMC as ‘a narco city‘. Never before has the Antwerp hip-hopper been so direct, almost cynical.”
“As an urban troubadour, I make music about my immediate surroundings, based on the things I observe,”
Tourist LeMC tells VRT NWS.
“Unfortunately, cocaine has become an indispensable part of Antwerp. That has been the reality for decades, but in recent years, drug-related criminal acts have been piling up. A shooting here, an explosion there: not a week goes by without Antwerp making the news in this way.”
“I definitely want to say something about this without taking a moral bird’s-eye view as an artist. When shots were fired in broad daylight in one of the side streets of our neighborhood, I felt how close it came to my life and that of many Antwerp residents.”
“This song was born from that feeling. The first verse was immediately on paper and the rest of the text quickly followed.”
“For the exact wording, I was inspired by the many newspaper articles about drug violence in our city. A word like ‘narco city’ is not a term from the Tourist repertoire, but unfortunately fits perfectly into this story.”
“I don’t drink alcohol and I don’t use drugs, so I don’t go looking for them myself. But I hear from different corners that everyone in Antwerp is just a message away from illegal substances. The time of elite party drugs is far behind us.”
“Drugs are present in all layers of the population and also in all neighbourhoods, so certainly not only in the nightlife district or port. Incidentally, that is a part of the city that Antwerp residents are very proud of, despite the dark side. Antwerp is its world port and the port is Antwerp.”
“To be clear: I do not judge people who are involved with drugs,” he emphasizes. “But I do want to address something with this song. Things are going very wrong when drugs are so easy to obtain and there is so much violence associated with them, also among minors. That scares me as an Antwerp resident.”
“As a father of three children under the age of 10, drugs are not yet an immediate concern. I am more concerned about their screen time at the moment,” he laughs. “But a piece of text like ‘damaged nose bone, miskin (slang for unfortunate, ed.) minor’ is not something I write lightly.”
Social media channels have previously banned Tourist LeMC due to his content about drug-related matters. Tourist LeMC experienced a block on his Instagram account because he posted song-release messages that centred around drugs.
“It seems like I’m promoting drugs, when I’m doing the opposite. The fact that a word like cocaine is filtered out on social media isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s annoying for me as an artist, though.”
“In my music I always look for the contrast between a light sound and a weighty text. In this way the form can always compensate for the content. But my new album sounds a lot more cynical than my previous music.”
“That part of myself is coming to the fore for the first time. I used to sound much more idealistic, and hopeful too. Maybe it’s a natural evolution through age? In any case, that different perspective offers space for new stories, which hopefully touch a sensitive chord.”
What is the history of Belgium’s drug problem?
Belgium concentrates its drug trafficking fight and its related violence issues in Antwerp because of the city’s important port status as Europe’s largest facility combined with its geographic advantages.
During the last ten years, drug-related criminal activity surged to the point where Antwerp became a key route for transporting South American cocaine.
Belgium established a new drug seizure record in 2022 by confiscating 110 tons of cocaine in its anti-drug operations. Thirty drug-related explosive attacks and shooting incidents took place in Antwerp during 2021.
The drug problem manifests in two directions since drug trafficking has spread to every stratum of society. Research published in 2020 showed that approximately 10% of people in Belgium between 15 and 64 years old consumed prohibited drugs, while cocaine consumption has grown notably among this age group. Current anti-drug efforts have not been sufficient to stop the ongoing impact which drug trafficking has on communities across Belgium.
