During the evening of the Flames on May 11, the singer Tiakola walked several times the stage of the Théâtre du Châtelet. For the trophy for pop album of the year, for the best afro or afro-inspired song, and then, for "Atasanté", sacred R & B song of the year.

R&B, with rap, afro or hip-hop, get recognition with this evening. However, this musical genre has long been the subject of confusion, misunderstanding, sometimes even contempt. This is explained by Rhoda Tchokokam, artistic director, photographer, critic and author of "Sensible, a history of French R&B".

From the Sensitive label to Aya Nakamura

A literary project born of a paradox: "R & B is a sister music of hip-hop, which emerges a few years after it, yet today there are no books on R & B. We are talking about forty years of history, the artists are present, they can tell this story, but there is an essential lack."

From there, Rhoda Tchockokam conducts interviews, meets those who, in the 1990s, launched R&B in France – a chapter on the Sensitive label edifying! - listen to their songs on repeat. A generational dive that she tells in this podcast "Minute Papillon".

Diluted R&B

With the aim of understanding what R&B has lacked to impose itself in the French musical landscape even today. Because if already at the time, R & B struggles to obtain the recognition of rap on the one hand and French song "with text" on the other, it has since lost its essence to comply with standards imposed by labels.

Rhoda Tchokokam says: "There is a type of R&B, the R&B variety, which I think came too soon. It is a diluted music, emptied of the essential elements of the genre. But it pleases the French public. So record companies understand that this is what you have to give. But for the vitality of the genre, for the maturity it didn't help."

Seeing no fatality, the author persists in finding a vitality in the genre. "There are still artists who claim an R&B heritage, like Aya Nakamura or Dadju. And then there are also very clearly R&B artists like Enchantée Julia." An analysis that she concludes, full of optimism: "The scene is not dead and for me it is being reborn, very slowly certainly, from its ashes".

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