Sensibles

In the early 1990s, groups inspired by American new-jack swing such as N’Groove, Tribal Jam and artists from the Sensitive label marked the first steps of French R&B. With the success of Poetic Lover and the choruses of French rap, some of the best-known of which were sung by R&B artists, it gradually established itself on the scene. A series of excellent debut albums followed (by K-Reen, Vibe, Matt Houston and Wallen), before a second generation emerged at the turn of the millennium, with hits and albums by R&B variety singers. For their part, the media and critics have often misunderstood and scorned these different artists, reducing their music to a watered-down version of rap, a “revenge for city girls”, or dismissing it as a foreign import. In this, her first book, Rhoda Tchokokam shows the richness not only of French R&B, but of French R&B as a genre in its own right.

Drawing on the words of the main players in this movement, Rhoda Tchokokam offers an ambitious cultural history. Her passion for French R&B songs constantly intersects with an analysis of their political dimension: she examines both their way of assuming sexuality and their injunctions to modesty, the strategies of commercial formatting and the affirmation of black sisterhood in music videos.