Is Jul the brand new Johnny Hallyday? | EUROtoday
Get real time updates directly on you device, subscribe now.
HAS 35 years outdated, Jul enters the dictionary. Tarik Chakor, lecturer in administration sciences in Aix-Marseille and co-founder of an company specializing in supporting artists and types, devotes a Little dictionary hagiographic (JC Lattès). The alternative to know how the Marseille rapper, usually denigrated for the poverty of his lyrics or his spelling errors on social networks, turned such a phenomenon (greater than 10 billion streams on Spotify).
The Point: Why has Jul develop into such a phenomenon?
Tarik Chakor: He first turned identified by means of his music, with the formation within the years 2014-2016 of a primary circle of followers, who love the musical fashion he creates, his rhythms. Beyond his music, he’s additionally liked for his authenticity in his manner of being, of behaving, of dressing, as evidenced by a lot of the artists on the rap scene who’ve met him. He doesn’t have a neighborhood supervisor to care for his social networks, even when it means making a couple of spelling errors, he receives his reward in jogging-slides-socks through the Victoires de la Musique in 2017… Well, for a number of years, and particularly the 13 Organized mission [album regroupant une cinquantaine de rappeurs marseillais, et sorti en 2020, NDLR]has added a brand new class of followers who hearken to it to “get in the mood”.
Jul can also be carefully linked to Marseille…
Yes, it stays related to the rebellious and indomitable character of town. He grew up there in a comparatively well-liked metropolis however on a human scale, the Louis Loucheur metropolis. He then tried to develop into a swimming pool attendant alongside his father, then a safety guard on the Stade Vélodrome, earlier than climbing the ranks within the music area with out ever taking himself for one more. Marseille is on the identical time the matrix, the setting and the character of his texts. He loves it however would not attempt to embellish it. The neighborhood, with its corollaries, is on the coronary heart of his texts: the struggles of on a regular basis life, the trafficking, the jail, but in addition the great instances shared, the laughter and the thrill.
Once thought of a “beauf”, Jul has develop into fashionable, rise up. How do you clarify the shift?
There has been a type of gentrification, even “booization”, of the phenomenon. There has been a pattern for the reason that success of the music “Organized Band”, by which he brings collectively rappers from Marseille (SCH, Kofs, Naps), in 2020 (100 million streams). Some early followers criticize the truth that privileged lessons acceptable Jul’s music and its codes, with out actual legitimacy. This can also be proof of its energy.
According to you, Jul’s music is definitely fairly melancholic…
It mixes very melancholy texts with danceable, simply memorized rhythms. He depicts darkish realities: betrayal in “J’fais que danser”, loneliness in “Phénoménal”. This distinction can also be current in his music “I forget everything”, which has develop into his anthem and with which he concludes all his live shows. Not all of his listeners are delicate to this hole between substance and type. Some have drawn the parallel with Stromae, and it’s true that they share this dancing melancholy.
To learn you, Jul is in the present day’s Johnny Hallyday…What have they got in widespread?
It is he himself who makes the connection in his music “C’est pas des LOL”: “I want to sell 110 million like Johnny Hallyday / I want to fill the Vél’ [le Stade Vélodrome, à Marseille, NDLR] like Johnny Hallyday. He has sold out the Vélodrome twice, but has not yet sold 110 million albums. Like Johnny Hallyday, Jul is a popular artist in the noble sense of the term, and coming from a working class background, he expresses himself in a raw way. Where Jul is perhaps even stronger than Johnny is that he has created a musical style in his own right…
Does Jul’s success symbolize the depoliticization of rap, which was very involved in the 1990s?
In 2018, he supported the Yellow Vests via a video posted on social networks, in rejection of the established order, but he remains discreet on political issues. This choice is part of a context where, in the age of hypercommunication and post-truth, rappers position themselves less and less on these subjects. That said, I would not speak of depoliticization in Jul, but rather of another form of politicization. He denounces the economic and social poverty in certain neighborhoods and defends Marseille’s identity. In a sense, his actions are more political than his words. Bringing together Marseille artists, from big brothers like the IAM group to the youngest, in the 13 Organisé (202) project, means promoting the identity of your city.
Jul also advocates violence and drug sales. In “Loi de la calle”, he states for instance: “The chases, the gusts, the good shit, it’s us / At two hundred [kilomètres, NDLR]it’s us / […] A burst in your body is not aimed at the knee”…
Rap is a roughly trustworthy mirror of actuality. Jul’s music is a part of the period of hypercommunication and in a troublesome financial, social and political context. It can also be the product of a music trade the place initiatives are designed and studied to generate essentially the most clicks, streams and gross sales, with the load of the majors and labels, which contribute to the generally caricatured nature of the texts. We discover there an usually violent actuality, depicted in an equally violent method, with out essentially apologizing for it.
Its success is an indication of the internationalization of rap…
Yes. Artists, notably Europeans, have been impressed by him. Like Aya Nakamura, it goes past borders, and notably impacts the remainder of Europe, the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa. For instance, he influences Morad, who could be offered as a Spanish Jul. This is an indicator of the opening of French hip-hop internationally.
Is Jul the article of political exploitation?
It by no means hurts to be related to a phenomenon that unites so many individuals. We have seen many politicians, like Emmanuel Macron, Alain Juppé or Philippe Poutou, make the Jul signal [les deux mains ouvertes avec les doigts écartés, NDLR]undoubtedly as a result of it might please and contact some French individuals, notably abstainers, a lot of whom are between 18 and 25 years outdated. But Jul, for my part, won’t ever brazenly come out in favor of 1 candidate over one other.
To Discover
Kangaroo of the day
Answer
Jul – Little dictionaryby Tarik Chakor, editions JC Lattès, 176 p., 14.90 euros.
https://www.lepoint.fr/debats/jul-est-il-le-nouveau-johnny-hallyday-30-10-2025-2602113_2.php