Hello, i'm a 22yo French guy and after testing the waters a bit on the daily discussion thread, a lot of people actually wanted to know more about French Rap. I'm going to try to cover as much as possible so you can really dig into the French Rap community, it's probably one of the biggest in the world next to the US. Every rappers/bands name is linked to a song from them by the way !
X. The origins of Rap in France
Like in America, Rap was born in France in the streets, where the difference between wealthy and poor grew deeper between the center of Paris and its numerous districts. Rap was a way for the sons of the African immigrants that ended up in those places to try to get out of it and give their familiy a better life.
Since France had colonies in Africa like Algeria or Senegal, a lot of rappers have parents born from those places, but there is still a white community living in the ghetto. Like in America, where some rappers take pride in their Jamaican origins by borrowing their slang and getting inspiration music-wise from them, French rappers dig into their ancestors's culture to build their music up, mainly Arabian, Center-African and Creole, the best old-school example are songs like Saian Supa Crew - Angela or 113 - Tonton Du Bled. We'll see later that recently, African upbeat style songs took over the mainstream even moreso than before, but let's dive into the different styles of Rap in France !
I. Old-School Rap, The Pionneers.
1990 is called the "Golden Age of French Rap" and it's for a good reason : it's the year that Rap broke the mainstream charts in France, with albums like MC Solaar's - qui sème le vent récolte le tempo selling more that 400 000 copies in 1992. It is also the decade where we saw a lot of legends rising from the street, with groups like Arsenik, Suprême NTM, Doc Gyneco and Lunatic all dropping albums that ended up at least gold and are still considered classics to this day. Old-School French Rap is pretty similar to Old School American Rap, it's basically a lot of concious talking about surviving in the streets and the world that we want to give to our childrens, the message is way ahead of the production in terms of priority and the flow can be a bit broken at times.
Nowadays, a small portion of rappers are still following those footsteps of straight bars over a smooth boombap beat, the way backpack rappers do in the US, like Jazzy Bazz or underground like Hugo TSR, while the pioneers are either retired or completely adapted their style to today's standards, with some of them settings up those standards for the future but we'll talk about that later.
II. France being influenced by the US, from Gangsta to Trap, Rap getting mainstream.
In the 2000s, Rap is now considered mainstream, this mean that the most famous rappers are now out of the streets and they prefer a more gangsta/dirty south/boasting type of rapping. A rapper named Booba, famous from the band Lunatic which i previously talked about is in my opinion the most influential Rap artist in France, being the first to hop on trends and creating his own that will be followed by many. After putting out a Classic album in Temps mort, he will slowly grow as an artist and by the time of his 3rd album Ouest Side he'll become one of the main actors in the Paris scene, along with rappers like Rohff, Nessbeal or Sefyu.
On the flip side, a deeper, more concious style of Rap becomes popular, attacking even more on touchy subjects like racism, violence, and politics, rappers like Kery James and Medine are in the front row of that new school of rappers.
Years go by and hardcore Rap/Trap has become the main trend, with rappers like Booba again, Kaaris, and Gradur being heavy influenced by drill rappers, with the use of aggressive 808s and rolling hi hats. At the same time, some original rappers try to break through, with rappers like VALD makes good use of social media by using shock value in music videos as a way to gain popularity.
Trap is still trending right now but new rappers like Fianso, Kalash Criminel or Niska are establishing themselves in the genre by making huge hits. A Belgian rapper named Damso got signed by Booba's label alongside rappers like Siboy or Benash. He's probably one of the biggest MC in the game right now, his album Ipseité has gone double Platinum and you should definitely check him out.
III. New trends : The future of Rap.
With the help of social media, rappers like MHD established themselves really quickly in the rap-game by releasing multiples "Afro Trap" Freestyle as he calls them, pretty much a Trap song with an upbeat African style instrumental to it, still as ego-boosting and self-confident as ever, like this, this or even that. Most of those freestyle broke millions of views pretty quickly and you can hear them pretty much everywhere. Afro Trap is pretty much what is trending right now, and rappers like Siboy with "Mobali" or Booba with DKR are using that trend at their avantage by making really solid hits with that recipe.
With Booba's and the US influence, Autotune now has a big place in today's rap. Used on Trap beats at first, Autotune gave birth to a more moody and chill type of music. PNL is a french group that used autotune really weird, grabbing up a Gold Album in the US and being invited to Coachella. Sadly, they had to cancel due to visa issues. SCH is way more on the Trap side but he uses autotune really well too and he has some cloudy songs. Rappers like Hamza sound really influenced by rappers like Travis Scott.
Since we're in the streaming era, a lot of newcoming rappers with interesting projects are coming up every other day, with platform like souncloud and more and more hip-hop event in different clubs in Paris, the french scene won't stop growing stronger and stronger. Rappers like Josman came out of nowhere and might be the frontline of what Rap is gonna be like in the next years.
IV. Bonus, collaboration between French and US Rappers.
French and US collaborations go way back, they actually are a lot so here some of my favorites and some notables/surprising ones, rappers like Meek Mill, Rick Ross or Migos did songs with french rappers too.
Jazzy Bazz ft. Freddie Gibbs - Lay back
Booba ft. Akon - Gun in Hand
Psy 4 de la rime ft. Nate Dogg - A l'ancienne
Missy Elliott ft. MC Solaar - All N My Grill
Nas & Suprême NTM - Affirmative Action
Wu-Tang Clan & IAM - La Saga
Fuzati ft. MF Doom - Depuis que j'étais enfant
Lacrim ft. Lil Durk - On fait pas ça
V. Another bonus, a couple of suggestions for you to enjoy !
Médine - GRAND PARIS - Probably French Rap best posse cut to show out the new generation of rappers, with some older guys like Médine, Lino and Youssoupha.
Kery james - Musique Nègre - Kery James with another thought-provoking track, this time he talks about a Politician that wanted to run for president, this guy also wanted to ban "N*gger Music", which is the name of the track, a lot of rappers can be seen in that video. This is the most banging concious Rap i've heard in a minute.
Youssoupha - Menace de mort - A song about Youssoupha being sued for "Death Threats" on a racist journalist, he probably got the most impressive multis in france and it's pretty much a diss track against the media.
Lino - 12ème lettre - "The twelth letter" is a really technical song from the legend Lino (he was in Arsenik that we talked about previously) based around the letter L, it's probably the song you'll get the most if you don't understand french since it's all about alliterations. The music video shows a whole of rappers too.
Siboy ft. Booba - Mula - Siboy's style of rapping is...pretty crazy, lots of screaming and swearing but his energy and the beat goes way too hard. Booba with a god flow on there too.
Seth Gueko - Titi Parisien - Seth gueko is usually a pretty hardcore/dirty rapper but it's a surprisingly chill song from him. A great taste of old-school rap.
So that's it for me, i hope it was interesting to read, english is not my main language so i can't really tell, tell me if i forgot about an artist that you like or if you want to know more about something, i'll be happy to answer !
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