Gangster Moderne Lyrics in English MC Solaar

Below, I translated the lyrics of the song Gangster Moderne by MC Solaar from French to English.
Heroes are petty thieves
They just added 4 or 5 zeros
Don't blame them
He's there, broad, nuts, swimming by the bank
He left the cage for flirting
The swamp is behind him, far away
His wisest act was shooting the Godfather
In his hood, General Noriega
Is as respected as Jean-Bedel Bokassa
Nino Brown, Escobar, the stacks of dollars
Are worshipped like Jesus Christ at night
In full crisis, Aldo steals at the Casino
Secretly he dreams of quitting scratching Banco tickets
His petty theft is a sign of bad luck
The snitches are surveillance cameras
No more Marlon Brando-style suits
The walk copied from De Niro of the Actor Studio
Luckily health flourishes in Fresnes
He dreams of politics to be a modern gangster
Modern gangster
It's just adding a few zeros
Modern gangster
Back then it was Alphonso Capone and Nitty
Today the Goodfellas cruise Paris in sedans
Leave it! In this biz, Eliot Ness is in cahoots
Satan runs the mass, so nobody confesses
He dreamed of smoking Thai weed with total impunity
But knows only MPs will get immunity
That the biggest gangsters work in marketing
While he bleaches jeans full-time in a dry cleaner's
He dreams action, bulletproof vest, paranoia
Without even a 13th-month bonus he wants into the famiglia
To let his retired father rest, heavy with pain
He wants to go into politics to be a modern gangster
Modern gangsters
Are today's people
They make the laws, they make the laws
Modern gangsters
It's the ideal in the projects
The new dream is a new Eden
One day he meets the woman of his life
He tells her about Scarface and the Cali Cartel
This world is yours, yeah you're the one who makes it
But from abstract to concrete, I don't wanna be your Florence Rey
She offers him a trip far from acid rain
Horseback in Camargue, breaststroke and quiet rest
A kid passes, Blédina on his mouth
Aldo pulls his gun and shoots the mafia godfather
The poster flies then falls to the floor
The high-flying chosen one is carried off by Aeolus
I've got a critical mind and read the daily press
I see political leagues are full of modern gangsters
Modern gangster
It's just adding a few zeros
Modern gangster
Does reality beat fiction?
Modern gangster
It's just adding a few zeros
Modern gangster
Lyrics and Translations Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
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SONG MEANING

Gangster Moderne is MC Solaar’s witty guided tour of the fantasy world that blossoms in the concrete maze of French suburbs. Through the eyes of Aldo, a small-time thief with oversized ambitions, Solaar stacks cinematic and historical references (Capone, Scarface, Noriega, Escobar, De Niro) to show how American mafia myths drift across the Atlantic and seduce young dreamers. Aldo pictures bullet-proof vests, luxury sedans and easy money, yet his daily grind is a laundry job and scratch-cards. The hook sums it up: to be a modern gangster, you just add a few zeros to your heist.

Behind the playful wordplay lies a sharp social critique. Solaar points out that today’s real kingpins wear suits, sit in parliaments and boardrooms, and launder fortunes with the stroke of a pen. Politics, marketing, even the press are portrayed as the new "families" where corruption enjoys legal immunity while street hustlers end up in prison. The song invites listeners to question who society calls a hero, who it calls a criminal, and how easily fiction can overshadow reality.

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