If all eyes should be on Angèle and the surprise announcement of the early release of her highly anticipated new album Ninety-five, this Friday is also marked by the return of Ninho with Jefe (“Chef” in Spanish). The rapper from Essonne with two billion views on YouTube returns with a new notable project, in particular by its absence of feats.
It is alone that the 25-year-old artist tells about himself through these fifteen very personal new pieces, which come to close a trilogy started in 2017 with As expected. And the purpose of this album is summed up in one sentence by the artist in the title RER D : “This is the story of my life buddy, after that we become chefs”.
“Keep a cool head and your head on your shoulders”
Over the titles, he therefore gives information on his career, his meteoric rise and the success he has met. “We don’t know the life of a guy who arrives at the top, who manages to make his plan a reality. We do not know the beginning, the base, the foundations. We often look at the house but never the foundations ”, explains the French rap star to AFP. The foundations are those years of hardship before breaking through or his life in a low-cost housing estate in the greater Parisian suburbs, which he recounts in titles such as RER D Where Truth and where he praises “the charm of the ghetto”. Not just the story of a defector, Jefe is also a manifesto. That of a young man who started rap at the age of 12 “out of passion” and who is today one of his biggest headliners.
However, Ninho assures to try to “keep a cool head and the head on the shoulders”. “Fame, all that is not important. For me, the most important thing is to continue to create ”. Create and stay away from the “clashes” so common in the world of rap. With his chubby face, his clear voice, and his shyness that he struggles to conceal, the rapper, very discreet in the media, has never ceased to cultivate the mystery.
On Form, Jefe takes up the codes of his previous opus: a clever mix between rocky and purely rapped titles and others more dancing and sung, like Aicha, nod to the song of Khaled, singer of Algerian rai. Rumba, tones close to raï or pop… These mixtures, so little present in rap a few years ago, allowed him to impose himself on a hyper competitive scene.
“If it works so much the better, if it doesn’t work, too bad”
Born in Longjumeau in Essonne to parents from Congo Kinshasa, William Nzobazola, whose real name is, has music in his veins: his father Serge Kiambukuta is a Congolese rumba singer. But now, William, he is only interested in rap, which he practices without the knowledge of his parents. Gradually, William will give way to Ninho, a nickname that “the city’s adults gave to the little ones, the + niños +”, he explains. In 2014, his first mixtape was released: “They’re not aware”, a barely veiled reference to his parents. But the first years are difficult and success is long overdue. “It was complicated at the start, but it was educational because I learned to work fast, write fast, record and mix fast,” he says.
Success arrives in 2016 with his mixtape MILS [« Maintenant ils le savent »]. A year later, his first album As expected, made him a rap star. The year 2018 is a prosperous year. He continues collaborations with rap heavyweights such as Rim’K or SCH. Everyone is snapping up the “bambino”, promised a bright future. Prolific, it comes out in 2019 Destiny, which makes him the most listened to French artist on streaming platforms, ahead of the Marseillais Jul or the two PNL brothers. Last July, his YouTube channel surpassed the two billion view mark.
Jefe can he do better than Destiny ? “We’ll see,” replies the artist. “If it works so much the better, if it doesn’t work, too bad, we will propose another project”. While waiting for the response of the charts, a tour throughout France is already scheduled for 2022.