Reflexivity in French rap more than a mirror to the republic Emily Q. Shuman

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Shuman, Emily Q., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rap (Music)--France--History and criticism.

Rap (Music).

Music and literature--France.

Music and literature.

Rap (Music)--Social aspects--France.

Rap (Music)--Social aspects.

Rap (Music)--History and criticism.

France.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Oxford University Press, 2026.

New York, NY Oxford University Press [2026]

Summary:

'Reflexivity in French Rap' offers a look at rap's position in the French cultural landscape. Emily Q. Shuman examines how French rappers hold up a mirror to themselves and to their social world, playing off the terms of debate over the music's aesthetic value and place in the French social imaginary. Shuman traces commonly held beliefs about French rap, from selectively legitimizing parallels to France's literary patrimony, to belief in its innate capacity to incite violence, to expectations that it performs racial difference, to lamentations of its commodified nature, to reinforcements of the mainstream media as its principal antagonist. However, rather than writing off these representations as distorted exterior gazes projected onto the music, Shuman instead shows how French rappers channel them into the lyrical, sonic, and visual qualities of their performances

Contents:

Cover

Half Title

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: "A Little Soft for Rebel Music": Negotiating French Rap's Representational Space

More than a Mirror: French Rap's Reflexivity

Situating French Rap Within and Beyond the Hexagon

Contesting French Rap's Marginality Through the Lens of Complicity

Close Reading French Rap: Between Aesthetics and Politics

Chapter Outline

Chapter 1 Literary Litmus Tests: Rap Artistry and the Figure of the Author

Literature, Language, and the Frenchness of Popular Music

MC Solaar: French Rap's Literary Litmus Test

Médine: Self-Granted Patrimony and Denounced Double Standards

Booba: Obscene Poetics, Outsourced Consecration

Chapter 2 Poetic Injustice: Staging the Penalization of French Rap

Performativity, Representation, and the Racialization of Poetic License

Theatrical Truth-Telling in Tandem's "Le Jugement"

Power and Performativity in La Rumeur's Regain de tension

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies in Sniper's "La France, itinéraire d'une polémique"

Historicizing Rap's Moral Imperatives in Youssoupha's "Menace de mort"

Chapter 3 Drawing in the Gaze: Reflexivity and the Performativity of Race in French Rap

Performativity and the Perceptual Process of Racialization

"Code Barbe": Fluidity and Fetishization of Racialized Markers

Abd al Malik: Pushing the Visual Limits of Abstraction

Casey: Undermining Colonial Discourse from Within

Chapter 4 Illicit Aesthetics: Market Cravings and Rap's Stupefying Appeal

Political Struggle, Aesthetics, and the Commodification of Racialized Cultural Products

PNL and the Controlled Substance of Subjectivity

Rap or the Art of Selling Oneself Like a Brick of Hashish

Gimmicks and Gendered (De)valuations in Shay's "Cocorico"

Chapter 5 Complicit Critiques: Rap's Immersion in the Media Landscape

Media, Complicity, and French Rap's Representational Space

Radical Posture and Disavowed Complicity in Keny Arkana's "V pour Vérités"

NTM: Distorted Media Frames and "On the Ground" Banlieue Authenticity

"11 septembre": Investigation and Irresolution in the Televisual Archives

"Don't Laïk": Complicit Visual Languages and Malleable Signifiers

Eurotrap: Authentic Inauthenticity and the Ambivalences of Decontextualization

Conclusion: Validé, Nouvelle École, and the Futures of French Rap's Reflexivity

Audiovisual Corpus

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on May 15, 2026)

Other Format:

Print version :

ISBN:

9780197781609

0197781608

OCLC:

1584664065

Publisher Number:

CIPO000376673

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license