Rhoda Tchokokam - Sensibles. Une histoire du R&B français

260 pages
Text(s) by Rhoda Tchokokam
20 x 13 cm
Language: French
Softcover
Publisher: Audimat Éditions
2023

In the early 1990s, groups inspired by American new jack swing such as N'Groove, Tribal Jam, and the artists of 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 most famous of which were sung by R&B artists, it gradually became a part of the landscape. A series of excellent first albums were released (K-Reen, Vibe, Matt Houston or Wallen) before a second generation imposed itself at the turn of the millennium, with the hits and albums of R&B variety singers. On their side, the media and the critics have often multiplied the misunderstandings and the marks of contempt towards these different artists, reducing their music to a watered-down version of rap, a "revenge of the girls of the city", or by rejecting it as a foreign import. In this first book dedicated to her, Rhoda Tchokokam shows the richness not only of French R&B, but of French R&B as a genre in its own right.

By relying on the words of the main actors of 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 their way of assuming sexuality as well as their injunctions to modesty, the strategies of commercial formatting as well as the affirmation of a black sisterhood in the videos.