2023-04-28 17:15:10
Zola arrives on a roaring TMAX scooter. Only means of transport to arrive on time, according to him, who says to come “from the bottom” from Essonne: “Going to Paris, for commuters, it’s a bore”, he summarizes. He takes off the blue balaclava he wears under a full-face helmet and it hangs in his hair. Half-breed curls that his mother “refused to comb”he says in his title Frostiestaken from his third album, Diamond you bledpublished in mid-March, which he will perform on stage throughout the spring and at summer festivals.
His concert on Friday April 28 in Dijon is one of the few that is not already sold out. His album, carried by the titles Amber, All daywith singer Tiakola, and Envie7vie, has found its audience and the right balance between street rap, R’n’B singing and American trap. Its two composers, SHK and Prince (nothing to do with the Minneapolis Kid who died in 2016), challenged its different flows on electronic or Caribbean productions.
The personality of Zola, 23, has also charmed the rap public. Silent, rare, almost resentful with those who did not support him in his early days, the half-breed Franco-Congolese, who grew up between Evry (Essonne) and the east of France, in Belfort, evolves outside of any collective . We only know of one mentor, DJ Kore, who had his heyday in the 2000s: “He taught me how to work in the studio, to set up my structures, now he is less present, he lets us make our artistic choices. »
His artist name, Zola, is not a nod to the illustrious 19th century writer.e century. It is his real family name that he takes from his father, Congolese, N’Zuni Zola. And even if he obtained a literary baccalaureate, the rapper tastes little of the humorous traits on his surname: “Only the old ones still make jokes to me about it. It doesn’t make me laugh. » French literature or rap in the language of Molière are not part of his references anyway. He claims to want to put himself at the level of American rap. For the stage, he swears only by the Texan Travis Scott, whose madness he praises, and prefers to arrive on stage, like him, without preparation.
“Stay spontaneous”
“I really want to do live, he explains, operate by feeling, remain spontaneous. I don’t want everything to be scripted, even the transition lines between songs, I refused to work on them. » For his rap sound and the evolution of his career, he says he is inspired by Lil Baby, rapper from Atlanta: “He comes from the street, but he became an artist. Today it is in fashion, very much in the picture. In his music, he talks about his feelings, he no longer raps “I have bricks of cocaine to sell”…”
You have 33.33% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.
#Rapper #Zola #polished #diamond