“Too fresh”, “the blood”, “an incredible shop”, “a sick thing”. Inaugurated this Friday morning, the “Jul Store”, an ephemeral store set up in the Terrasses du Port de Marseille shopping center, delighted the rapper’s fans. They came in large numbers, some as early as six o’clock in the morning, to obtain That’s when it goes out, Jul’s 28th album, and the latest from her clothing brand backed by her “D’or et de platinum” label. T-shirts, shorts, balaclavas, bucket hats but above all tap shoes and socks, symbols of touch Jul, struggled throughout this first day.
A set that seems determined to afford Romain, 16, apprentice cook. “Basically, I work in a restaurant but I managed to put my day down”, explains the young man, dressed in an (already) vintage Jul t-shirt dating from the album Lacrizeomicreleased in 2014. With a budget of “250 to 300 euros” for this day, he should have no difficulty filling his basket while the rapper wants to offer prices that match his audience: the T-shirts are at 20 euros, same price for the bob with the CD.
“I’m getting old here”
The queue that stretches for several tens of meters, seeming to taunt the nearby Jules ready-to-wear store, compiles the faces of youth, but not only. A father in a denim shirt, accompanies his two daughters. Further, we came with “a list of his nephew – tap, shorts, t-shirt, – who lives in Haute-Savoie”. “Me, they lost me with Jul. I am from the older generation. Maybe there was less communication, less product. I’m getting a bit old here, ”laughs Déborah, more of a fan of IAM, FF, Third Eye than Jul, Naps or SCH.
“Is he coming, Jul?” asks Clara, 18. “As it’s the first day, we thought that as much as he would come,” says the high school student who came with her friend Chaïma. And the two young women are not the only ones hoping for it. “Jul gets the whole town moving. It’s a sick thing, ”underline Alexis, Allan and William, three students from Nelson-Mandela high school in the La Fourragère district. All of them are wearing their new T-shirts, hastily put on in the shopping center toilets. “He’s too cool as a rapper and his shop is incredible,” enthuses Lilou, a first-year Staps student at the University of Aix-Marseille. “She’s a hardcore fan,” says her friend Valentine, who is studying medicine. “Me, I adore Jul, but I wouldn’t dare go out in his clothes. Well yes, maybe to go to the stadium, ”she finally corrects.
Because that’s what the Jul brand is all about. From the Terrasses du port to the Vélodrome stadium, from the southern districts to the northern districts, wealthy or impoverished youth, the Marseille rapper “brings everyone together”, observes William. And this to the delight of Marie Canton, the director of the Terrasses du Port shopping centre: “It’s a great communication and marketing operation, for them and for us. At midday, about 2,000 people came just for the shop. »
To measure this affluence, it must be compared to the 20,000 entries that the shopping center usually makes and on average on Fridays. The doors of the “Jul Store” will remain open until June 25. And so much the better for Hauba and Rayan, both 16 years old. “We will come back another day. There are too many people there, they explain before confessing: we just came to see if Jul would be there… And a bit of the gadjis too. »
Finally Jul came triggering a real jubilation. A quick passage at the end of the afternoon, shortly before 6 p.m. For the happiness of those who hoped, the lucky and the patient.