Why is Aya Nakamura so despised in France?

Article originally published on November 18, 2020.

DNK extension, this is the name of the fourth album by Aya Nakamura (in homage to her real surname, Danioko), who continues to make the planet dance while suffering from a certain contempt in France. It just came out on January 27, 2023, not preceded by a promotional marathon as many French artists do, but rather by some selected media stunts: the cover story prestigious M, the magazine of the world, Lena Situations podcast “Canape 6 places”, as well as an interview with music journalist Mehdi Maïzi for his show “Le Code Radio” on Apple Music. A sign that the artist knows well that she does not need traditional media to break records, as her previous efforts had shown. Flashbacks and analysis.

Aya Nakamura, ahead of the release of her fourth album DNK on January 27, 2023

Self, AYA, the third work of the singer, released on November 13, 2020, turns out to be more sung and personal than her previous work which opened the doors for her to international fame, is accompanied by a reversal of the media situation symptomatic of the issues of racism, misogyny and classism in France. Or as a summary for Lose Marie France Malonga, media sociologist, specialist in the social and media representation of minorities:

” Major French media now understand that they need Aya Nakamura, but she doesn’t need them. »

capricious diva, angry black woman and sexual beast

” It hurts, it hurts “, Yann Barthès (have you got it?) when Aya Nakamura gives him the wrong company for the show Daily November 13, 2020 (the day of the release of his new album, which is named after his name).

What should be a problem for the artist, who loses an opportunity for promotion, is presented as a crime of lese majeste by various media, starting with the TMC star host who tells on the air that he was left at the last minute .

Sociologist Marie-France Malonga analyzes this media strategy as follows:

“This can be interpreted as a way to make her seem like a capricious diva, a sexist cliché, which refers to the suspicion of hysteria, which many try to attach to her to delegitimize her success.

But the audience success of M6 news with her proves how much Aya Nakamura can bring to the public »

Media expert Marie-France Malonga continues:

” Black women in particular are consistently referred to as two stereotypes. That of the angry black woman, the one that in the French context we would prefer to call the “mama fâchée”. Or that of the sexual beast.

These dehumanizing stereotypes have often been copied by the French media against Aya Nakamura, constantly referring to her origin, her physique, her size, her curves. Continuously emphasizing its physical specifics is a way to permanently alter it.

Which returns, as an implicit message: “This person is different and does not come from us. »

Now, Aya Nakamura’s international success operates a form of validation for the French media who finally begin to consider her a French and singular singer.

To me, she’s clearly a word wizard. »

Sexism + racism + classism = Aya Nakamura?

This status as a singer has long been denied to her, as Aya herself regretted in an interview with the Parisian :

” Some think [que je suis une rappeuse] because I am a boy who comes from the neighborhoods. It’s a cliche that people don’t listen to me. »

For Eloïse Bouton, founder of the media Miss Rap, dedicated to women and LGBT+ in hip hop, this shortcut is a recurring phenomenon:

“Believing that rap is the preferred genre of music for racialized people in working-class suburbia is a shortcut that many people keep, especially in the mainstream media. Aya Nakamura’s use of language that the dominant does not necessarily understand also plays into the relentlessness she experiences. Hence the many articles that took offense at the slang used in “Djadja” or “Pookie”, or made fun of her words, without ever considering that it could be a form of artistic expression. Poetry, indeed. »

Oddly (not), the French media have never sought with the same fervor the meaning of the words of Christine & The Queens (“ I do all my makeup / With Mercurochrome / Against pop-ups / that secure my throne » in the title Inclined) or Julien Doré (“ On your soft and sublime skin / The dolphins of the sea / They have a heart of tropical spleen / On the distant beach / I want you Coco Câline ” into Coco Calino). Because the dominant French media recognize their status as pop artists, entitled to any form of poetic licence.

What they still refuse to Aya. And it’s likely based on an unfortunate mix of sexism, racism and classism, according to music expertEloise button:

“In my opinion it is for sexist, racist and classist reasons. Pop in France seems to me deeply connected to the music genre of variety, of which cisgender and white heterosexual men have historically been the most visible.

To deny Aya Nakamura the pop register is to deny her as a popular singer.

Its public success contrasts with the gaze of the dominants, transmitted by the media, who still consider themselves the only ones who can judge what is good or not, worthy of being art or not. »

Class contempt reserved for his unclassifiable musical genre

The difficulty in classifying Aya Nakamura’s music also plays into the difficulty of the French media in recognizing her success, according to Eloïse Bouton :

“Aya Nakamura’s musical style is on the side of pop, R’n’B and Afro-beat. This label-loving country today struggles to classify contemporary artists who mix musical genres and influences. They don’t just rap, just pop, or just R’n’B. I hope we will finally allow artists to self-determination.

Waiting, the term “urban music” has no meaning in my opinion. If there is a music of the cities, what would be the music of the rural fields?

It’s an expression of the dominants, and also of settlers in the case of the expression “world music” in my opinion. Originally “urban music”, it is an invention of institutions that refuse to recognize rap as a genre.

Over time, other musical genres have been added to this artificial category that have absolutely nothing in common, except that they are mainly produced by racialized people. This categorization seems so dismissive to me. »

If music remains one of the rare spaces of expression where racialized people can succeed in France, Aya Nakamura is the first black woman to be successful at this point.

Karima Ramdani, a doctor of political science who has studied the musical careers of French women in hip hop and R’n’B from the 1990s to the 2000s, observes with Lose that the singer of Djadja is the exception that proves the rule:

” Aya Nakamura has entered a media and cultural space that tends to shun dark-skinned women. It built itself almost autonomously, largely thanks to social networks where it built the foundations of its success, without depending mainstream media who are now running after them because they realize how late they are. »

How Aya Nakamura Survives Misogyny

The queen of Nakamurance returns and thus reclaims what was until then a stigma in the French music industry: being a black woman with dark skin.

Media sociologist Marie-France Malonga confirms with Lose the dynamic of the colorist which may have complicated the recognition of the singer:

” Colorism is a form of racism in which skin color serves as a social marker. The darker you are, the less you perceive beautiful, deserving, noble, according to logics inherited from slavery.

But Aya, presenting herself in her music and in her public appearances as mistress of her life, of her aestheticization, mistress of her hypersexualization, turns the situation upside down. Same in her way of occupying space, she imposes the posture of a powerful womanstraight.

It wrings the neck of received ideas that a black woman cannot be a salesman, an inspirer, a unifier. »

Aya Nakamura even turns upside down what African-American and queer researcher Moya Bailey defines misogynoir, the structural oppression suffered by black women due to the specific conjugation of their gender and their social race.

But if the singer never makes epilogues on these questions, it is undoubtedly by strategy, according to Karima Ramdani:

“I think even Aya Nakamura has realized that she has an interest in not (yet) politicizing her career. Because we’d be asking him even more questions about feminism, sexism, racism. She would be severely expected at the turn. It is easier to answer “I don’t know” than to give a necessarily divisive or insufficient answer. »

Like Beyoncé, Aya Nakamura also seems to have understood the paradoxical power of silence when you are a singer who wants to survive the misogynist.

Front page photo credit: Fifou.

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