L’École du Micro d’Argent (The School of the Silver Mike) is an album recorded by IAM. The band became famous worldwide with this album, a classic in French hip-hop music. It was partly recorded in the USA, with some aesthetic influences brought by RZA, of the Wu-Tang Clan. On the track “L’Enfer”, a sample from Lalo Schifrin’s music for Don Siegel’s movie “Dirty Harry” can be heard (the electric piano notes). The album deals with very realistic and dark topics in a sometimes violent and often dark vocal performance. Though it contains few happy “ego-trip” songs, most of these ego songs deal with war metaphors and are sung with violent tone and rhythm. More than the ego schemes, the main topic of the album stay the criticism of French society: life in poor suburbs which leads to a reference to slavery, violence of the youth connected with the violence in television and movies, censorship, racism. At least three songs deal with prostitution, but in ways from irony and fun to violent and dark realism. It remains the best selling French hip-hop album, and is widely considered as the best French rap album of all time, though not by the band itself. The album is considered to have widely influenced French rap artists and French music industry, opening a new era of success for French rap.