Nicolas Sarkozy won the French presidential election in May 2007. His campaign used “national identity” as a central theme to address France’s immigration “problematic”. That October, Mouss and Hakim, two singers from the French music groups Zebda and Motivés, launched an album of Maghrebin songs of exile entitled Origine Contrôlées (controlled designation of origin). These songs, written by Maghrebin immigrants living between Algeria and France after the war through the 1970s, tell of their hardships. This article interrogates these contemporary musicians’ claim on immigration’s cultural heritage within the specific political context of the 2007 elections. In other words, how can music constitute, appropriate and share a memory?