Financiamiento

Raised in Vierzon, France, José Nzengo, or Josman discovered hip hop through his sister who enjoyed different genres of music and around the age of 14, the young man decided to try his hand at rapping.22 _{Eventually, he made a name for himself at open mics and rap battles at End} of the Weak, a freestyle rap tournament held in multiple countries across the world such as France, The Philippines, and South Africa.23 The rapper released his first project, Echecs Positifs (Positive Failures) in 2015, followed by Matrix in 2016, and finally, his most recent project, 000$, which he put out in 2017. On the song “Vanille” (Vanilla) from 000$, the artist copies the overall style of American rapper Schoolboy Q, unlike La Fouine, who focused on a single song. His choice to take on Schoolboy Q’s style pushes him beyond the borders of France as the song almost constantly references the American rapper and it allows Josman to engage in dialogue about what French rap is.

Incorporating styles of American rappers into his own music is not unique to this Josman song. The fifth track on 000$, “High Life” mimics the style of Houston rapper Travis Scott with his signature shriek-like “yeah” ad-libs and faded auto-tuned crooning.24 Although he does not outright state his influences on the song “Vanille”, the artist revealed that he borrowed from Schoolboy Q in an interview: “... et je pense que c’est effectivement plus proche de Schoolboy

22 _{Josman, “Je me vois plus comme un artiste qu’un rappeur,” interview with Toni S, Booska-P, June 22, 2017,}

https://www.booska-p.com/new-josman-je-me-vois-plus-comme-un-artiste-qu-un-rappeur-portrait-n76044.html. “Le rappeur vierzonnais José Josman Nzengo ne participera pas à la finale d'End of the weak,” Le Berry Républicain, June 7, 2014, https://www.leberry.fr/vierzon/loisirs/art-litterature/2014/06/07/le-rappeur-vierzonnais-jose-josman- nzengo-ne-participera-pas-a-la-finale-d-end-of-the-weak_11033889.html#refresh.

23 _{Ibid. “Home Page,” End of The Weak, accessed March 10, 2018, https://eodub.com/.} 24 _{Josman, “High life,” 2017, track 5 on 000$, online mixtape.}

justement, notamment pour les « yah, yah »,” joked the rapper (“… and I think that it’s actually more similar to Schoolboy, mostly for the ‘yah, yah’”).25 _{In the song, the two prominent features} of Schoolboy Q’s music that Josman uses are his ad-libs and the nasality he often adds to his voice when rapping.

Five lines into Josman’s record, the listener hears “yeah” after the word xaalis, which means “money” in Wolof.26 _{The decision to have a word in another language before referencing} the Schoolboy Q demonstrates transculturation in that Josman is importing two languages into his French, which elevates the song from its local status to a more global one.27 In many of Schoolboy Q’s songs such as “Man of The Year,” “Hands on The Wheel,” or “Collard Greens,” one can find his trademark ad-lib, “yeah,” which many rappers say, but Schoolboy Q

differentiates himself from other rappers in the distinctive ways in which he shouts the ad-lib. Schoolboy Q’s voice takes on a slight nasal slant and he often trails off the “yeah” with vocal fry, which describes the sound created by slow vibrations of only one end of the vocal folds, creating a creaky or croaking sound.28 In Josman’s reproduction of Schoolboy Q, the same features are present, almost as if he sampled the rapper. After hearing the ad-lib for the first time, it fades into the background of the track, becoming integrated into the beat, and the listener hears it from time to time during Josman’s verses. The fact that the song becomes marked by another rapper’s characteristics links the track to American hip hop, which demonstrates a diversity in Josman’s music because he does not look exclusively to French rap for inspiration. Additionally, Josman puts himself in a position to prove his skill by using Schoolboy Q’s style. In adopting it,

25 _{Josman, “Josman, l’anti-héros de la matrice,” interview by Osain Vichi, Yard Media, June 2017,}

http://yard.media/interview-josman/.

26 _{Josman, “Vanille.” (000$, 2017), https://genius.com/Josman-vanille-lyrics, line 5. Peace Corps The Gambia,}

“Wollof-English Dictionary,”1995, http://resourcepage.gambia.dk/ftp/wollof.pdf

27 _{Lull. Media, Communication, Culture: A Global Approach, 242.}

28 _{David Crystal, Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, 6}th _{ed (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2008), s.v.}

he proves that he can adapt to different flows and switch through them mid-song, reinforcing his strength as a rapper. The listener understands that the song’s core is French given that Josman primarily uses French in this song, with the occasional dip into other languages. However, those uses of other languages remain episodic whereas the Schoolboy Q reference is recurring,

reminding the listener that the product to which they are listening has adopted features that are not French, thus placing the song in a transglocal space that is no longer exclusively French.

The chorus of “Vanille” strengthens the appeal to a more global identity as it not only features the pitched “yeah” ad-libs, it also features Josman applying Schoolboy Q’s vocal style in the actual lines of the song. Josman’s appropriation of Schoolboy Q’s style allows him to rival Schoolboy Q, present his own listeners with innovation in French rap delivery, and to diversify the characteristics of French rap. In lines 9-12 of the record, Josman stresses the first syllable of the last word, in the same way La Fouine did when he took on the flow from “Jumpman.” Josman cries out:

“En attendant le soleil me sourit, la nuit m'fait la gueule (yeah, yeah, yeah) J'aime une femme, une mère et c'est la seule (yeah, yeah, yeah)

T'inquiète pas, je sais quelle est ma famille (yeah, yeah, yeah)

Le monde pue la merde, mais il a un goût de vanille (yeah, yeah, yeah).”29 (“While waiting, the sun smiles at me, the night sulks at me,

I love a woman, my mom, and she’s the only one, Don’t worry, I know who my family is

The world smells like shit, but tastes like vanilla.”)

In addition to the words with underlined portions being pronounced in a way that more closely resembles English, Josman shouts them with a nasal voice and vocal fry, further

channeling Schoolboy Q’s style and flaunting this transculturation and has fused it with his own sound. He does this to link himself to the popular American music label, to add prestige to his

music, and to contest rap norms in French hip hop by introducing new sounds and styles to the genre. Currently, TDE music has a reputation of releasing high quality music, namely because of Kendrick Lamar, but also in part because of Schoolboy Q and other artists on the label. Copying Schoolboy Q instead of Kendrick Lamar demonstrates nuance on part of Josman because it is apparent that he is familiar with the artists on the label besides the main one. After the first chorus, the song continues with the second and third verses, each one followed by a chorus. The song ends with Josman repeating “yeah” three times in the voice he uses for the verses of the song. The song finishes with the chorus and Josman’s words reinforce that he pushed his song beyond the cultural context of French rap through his strong use of outside influences.

The use of these specific rappers’ flows points to deliberate efforts to move outside of France by channeling artists from abroad despite France having its own rap culture. French artists took flows from American rappers when rap first hit France because they did not have anything of their own and appropriated flows and adapted them to the phonetics of the French language. To copy flows of American rappers now is to seek to valorize French rap to the non- French listener because American rap still remains the point of reference for rap music

worldwide. The rappers chosen to imitate by Josman and La Fouine have not yet attained legend status in hip hop and can be seen as their peers because both Josman and La Fouine are relatively close in age to those they mimic, which furthers the idea that the two used the Americans’ style to elevate themselves to the levels of those they copied. Additionally, the French rappers allowed the American rappers’ styles to dominate while keeping their styles in the background in order project that they are appealing to listeners of American hip hop, which is global. They are also embracing other cultures in their music, pushing narratives of diversity in French society through rap music.