The amorous Auto-Tune crooning of Algerians like Cheb Khaled was agreeable postcolonial contributions to French pop music from its former colony, despite the paradoxical disinterest in housing North Africans within the French peninsula. Though his hip-hop card may have been up for deliberation, the sight of the son of clandestine refugee immigrants, front and center at the premier French music awards performing the Congolese rumba, earmarked new possibilities for French hip-hop-and French migrants. NTM’s Joey Starr, who, in the '90s, was sentenced to prison for performing an anti-police song, labeled Gims’ music “ shit” and derisory to a profession he had helped establish. Gims’ accessible African rap became an instant floor filler at diaspora wedding receptions while also appealing to the exoticism of the white French media, gaining him backlash from some French rap pioneers. Selling on par with Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly, Gims’ sophomore release further bifurcated his musical output with the career-defining “ Sapés Comme Jamais.” An ode to the Congolese fashion movement Sapeurs his father helped popularise as part of Papa Wemba band in his native Congo, the rumba-rap cross-pollination capitalized on the burgeoning Nigerian Afropop scene, led by Wizkid and P-Square, and became a viral francophone sensation, ensconced in history with a memorable performance at Les Victoires de la Musique. Compare this to the much-buzzed-about UK scene, where Dave’s March album release, Psychodrama, became only the sixth British rap album ever to top the UK chart, and the lack of reporting on the success of the French rap revolution paints a picture of stark anglocentrism.īy the release of his second album two years later, Gims’ major chord anthems and brand of “ more open and less aggressive” rap had become a genuine part of the fabric of French culture. So far in 2019, French-speaking rappers have sat atop the French singles charts every week but two (see Lil Nas X), while commercial hip-hop albums are released at a rate of one per less than every 48 hours. In 2018, rappers from the impoverished suburbs of Paris sold more units than their counterparts in Los Angeles over the same 12-month period. Their refusal to allow a remix of their ethereal “ A l’Ammoniaque” bespoke not only their autonomy but a hip-hop scene that is now a self-sustaining ecosystem, accruing millions of euros annually and dominating French popular culture.
FUTURE THE WIZRD DOC FREE
Despite this behavior, PNL’s reclusiveness doesn’t extend to the free market: the unsigned rappers have signed deals with Uber- to pay for rides while their album plays-and, more recently, announced their own Snapchat and Instagram filters.
0 kommentar(er)
