Marseille rapper Jul released on Friday, December 10 Independence, his 26th album (mixtapes included) in just seven years of career. On this occasion, we invite you to discover this article, initially published in December 2020.
“I walk in an organized band, not there to sympathize. They did not believe in me, worry, in the end, they realized”. In a verse of the collaborative piece I am Marseille, Jul sums up the first seven years of his career in one sentence: criticized, even mocked, for his iconoclastic style when he debuted in 2014, he ended up establishing himself as one of the essential players in French rap .
Le Marseillais, who released his 26th album on Friday December 10 Independence, in February 2020 became the biggest seller of French rap in history with 4 million albums sold. How did he manage such a feat? Three-step response.
By imposing a festive musical touch (while giving pledges to purists)
Joyful melody of electronic inspiration, heady choruses, effective rhythms, lyrics describing a daily life that juggles rap, friends, love stories between two trips in the car, alcohol and joints … “When you hear Jul, you may find it fantastic … or atrocious. But you recognize everything following”, smiles Mehdi Maïzi, head of hip-hop on the Apple Music platform and author of French rap, an exploration in 100 albums (The Word and the Rest, 2015). Want to check it out? Listen to the first seconds of I forget everything (released in 2014), then I walk (2016) and Sousou (released this year): the ingredients change, but the recipe is still far removed from the powerful sounds often prized in rap.
To compose his songs, the Marseillais even dares to venture into the territory of variety and pop, which most rappers would flee for fear of ruining their badass image. He thus resumes, sometimes in a duet, Barbie girl Aqua, Midnight Demons by Emile and Images, The beggar of love by Enrico Macias or more recently Crazy night Early evening. A must-have for popular evenings which he transforms “And you tap, tap, tap, it’s your way of loving” in “And you snappes, snappes, snappes [utilises le réseau social Snapchat], when you want to surround yourself “.
“Jul has the art of linking rap and popular culture, explains Fred Musa, who has hosted the Planète Rap show on Skyrock since 1996. It made people cringe at the start, because in France we tend to think that rap has to be political and committed. While it is also historically festive music: at the beginning of the movement, there was The Message [un morceau fondateur du rap à messages sorti en 1984], but also Rapper’s Delight [une chanson très festive parue en 1979] ! “, he asserts.
Guitarist and jack-of-all-trades producer, rapper A2H doesn’t say anything else. “To be honest when I ran into In my paranoia in 2014, my ‘musician’ side took over and I didn’t like it at all. I found it basic, I was shocked by this almost funfair atmosphere. But he perfected his formula, and by force, I understood his delirium. Today, I am totally returning my jacket! “, admits the one who compares himself to a “jazz fan who would appreciate reggae”.
A sign that he is not the only one to have converted, he assures that several artists who pass through his studios no longer hesitate to ask him for music. “à la Jul”. And the musician concludes: “Besides, when Jul really wants ‘kicker’ [rapper], he knows how to do it very well … “
Because although he claims to be “UFO” of the French scene, Jul punctuates all his albums with one or two pieces of pure and hard rap, in which he abandons the autotune which modifies his voice too much to the taste of the most purists. picky. “He’s a hell of a rapper, who has proven it several times on Planète Rap. He is perfectly at ease to rhyme on an instrument in free style, which is an exercise where it is impossible to cheat”, engages Fred Musa, who does not hesitate to recall that with 43 minutes and one second, the Marseillais holds the record for the longest freestyle performed live on his show.
By keeping it simple (while being discreet)
Part of Jul’s success can also be explained by the image he exudes. Like a Jean-Jacques Goldman, he flees the spotlight and the flashy objects often associated with rap stars. His public speech is very rare: contacted through his agent and his lawyers, he did not wish to respond to franceinfo.
“He is simple and humble”, confirms Solda. Member of the Guirri Mafia group, from the Félix-Pyat district located north of Marseille, he has known Jul since 2010. “We have lost sight of each other several times over the years, but we have always found each other”, continues the one who recently collaborated with him on the tube Organized band. “Proof that he’s a good guy? He just gave me the pair of sneakers that are released in limited edition with his album!”, he blurted out with a burst of laughter.
Where a Booba wonders if he should choose “the Ferrari or the Lambo[rghini]“ for “show off this weekend”, Jul arrives at the Stade Vélodrome in a Twingo to present his album to the public. And rather than renewing his wardrobe with luxury clothes, the Marseillais flaunts his slippers and socks on his feet with Decathlon tracksuits (to the point of devoting an entire piece to his Quechua jacket). A style that has created a real trend in its city, causing sales of the sports brand to skyrocket, as France 3 Marseille explained at the end of 2019.
This simplicity is reflected in the way the artist manages his presence on social networks. Followed by nearly 2.5 million people on Instagram and 1.5 million on Twitter, Jul does not hesitate to do without the services of a community manager to speak directly to his “team”. His messages full of spelling mistakes have earned him the taunts of the general press (including, let’s face it, franceinfo), but the person concerned fully assumes his style in one of his rare media interventions with the Parisian.
“If I wanted, I could write better. But I got into the habit of writing with my cell phone, even my lyrics for my songs. So I have text writing. Now if I wrote flawlessly , my fans, my Team Jul, would guess right away that it’s not me. If there are any faults, it’s because it’s me! And what matters most in the world is to keep my sincerity, to keep it simple and work a lot. “
This certain good nature allows him to benefit from a broad benevolence on the networks and to dodge controversy. Jul was thus congratulated for having offered to his fans to make the cover of his new album, where the YouTuber Squeezie had had to give up a similar competition after being accused of engaging in speculative labor. And while rappers like Medina or Orelsan have been forced to explain themselves for provocative words spoken in the past, the “Don’t undress you, I’m going to rape you” launched by the Marseillais in one of his first successes published in 2014 seems to have crossed the #MeToo era without a hitch, at least for now.
By putting down a phenomenal job (while putting oneself at the service of the collective)
But undoubtedly the main ingredient in Jul’s success is his ability to bombard his fans with new stuff. In six short years, this self-taught musician has released no less than fourteen studio albums, to which are added seven projects distributed free online (mixtapes). “He embodies like no other the streaming generation, which has imposed a new rhythm on the rap scene”, analysis Fred Musa, admiring the ability of the Marseillais to offer in addition to new titles at each of his passages in Planète Rap.
“We are facing a guy who makes four albums a year, each time with titles that become national hits”, abounds Mehdi Maïzi. A tour of the website of the National Union of Phonographic Publishing (SNEP) shows this. Diamond, double or triple platinum, gold … Almost all of Jul’s projects have been certified. The rapper also decided last March to sell these rewards at auction to help hospitals facing the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 300,000 euros were thus collected, noted France 3 at the time.
“That’s the advantage of rap: in these days when sales figures are predominant, you can only bow when the results are there. This success has allowed him to be unanimously respected by other rappers.”
Mehdi Maïzi, hip-hop manager of the Apple Music platformto franceinfo
This crazy productivity, which has earned him the nickname “the Machine”, allows Jul to be talked about almost all year round. But he also knows how to step back: in the fall, he managed to bring together about fifty Marseille rappers on a single record. Baptized 13 Organized, the project associates tutelary figures like IAM and the Fonky Family with confirmed talents like SCH and L’Algérino, while adding young shoots (Elams or Mubarak) and protest feathers (Keny Arkana).
The old Marseillais rap were then able to closely observe the Jul method. “I discovered the man and the entrepreneur. I understand his career better: I have never seen such a hard worker. He took care of everything: the meetings, the studio sessions, the productions … Everything the credit goes to him “, enthuses Sat the Artificer, member of the Fonky Family, in the columns of the World.
However, Jul did not take advantage of the success of this operation, which will be a milestone in the history of Marseille rap, to hit the jackpot. “For this project, he wanted the 50 participants to be credited as producers so that they could all get the same sum. I had never seen that in the rap world “, says Fred Musa. And the presenter of Planète Rap to wonder aloud: “It’s as if he doesn’t think he deserves the central place he now occupies.”