Sensibles – Une histoire du R&B français

Sensibles – Une histoire du R&B français -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.