For the 5th edition of the Joséphine Prize, the artists’ jury, chaired by singer Pomme, has shortlisted the 10 albums for the final prize, which will be awarded on September 30 at the Olympia… Chassol and Camille Yembe are already seen as frontrunners.
Joséphine Prize, 5th edition. Of the 269 records (albums and EPs included) entered for the 5th Joséphine Prize for artists, the journalist panel had already selected 40 on May 29; today we reveal the 10 albums chosen by the artists’ jury (which includes Vanessa Wagner, Flavien Berger and Yuksek), chaired this year by Pomme.
Chassol and Camille Yembe are already frontrunners to succeed November Ultra, Tuerie, Bonnie Banane and Oklou. So mark your calendars for Monday, September 30 at the Olympia for the live showcase of the 10 finalists and the revelation of the winning artist. In the meantime, a critical look at the 10 selected records.
15 15 Mārara (S76 Records/Wagram)
Since the collective’s birth in 2013, scavenger-hunt-like explorations have been part of the DNA of the group formed by Tsi Min, Ennio, Julia, Robin and his brother Marvin. With these chief lab techs, sound researchers, and renovators of Polynesian oral traditions, every sonic exploration finds its place, weaving and communicating within Mārara, the fictional island that lends its name to 15 15’s debut album. A miniature continent loaded with vernacular symbols, at once preserved and open to the world, of which this debut would be the ideal soundtrack. Between two interludes that celebrate traditional chants steeped in the island’s mythology, 15 15 returns to its artisanal tinkering, sonic obsessions, and revised and enhanced rhythmic signatures by electronic music from all horizons. A world-maps album as intricate as a season of Lost, to be traversed, unearthed, and, at the same time, wandered through. Always off the beaten path. TD
Read Théo Dubreuil’s review.
23wa AZ (Ethan Crespi/Distrokid)
Perhaps by ticking off some recommendations on Rate Your Music or losing yourself late at night in suggestions on YouTube in search of new sounds, you’ve landed on Ethan Crespi’s music. An experimental producer tied to a portion of francophone rap and underground scenes but often categorized among fellow contemporaries and collagists like Oneohtrix Point Never, Weed420, or Chuquimamani-Condori, the twenty-three-year-old jack-of-all-trades has, since the start of the decade, unfurled a cosmogony of influences that’ll leave you dizzy. True to the programmatic title, his latest album is a gargantuan arrangement of emo or industrial rock, footwork, R&B, French chanson, Latin electronic music, punk, and ambient sounds, promising to go from A to Z. Across its hour and a half, AZ is a tumultuous, disorienting voyage, a bottomless pool where every idea chases another. An immersive experience as draining as it is exhilarating. TD
Aupinard Spleen. Social Club (Aupinard/BMG Rights Management France)
As the cover of what constitutes his debut album suggests, Spleen. Social Club, the music of Bordeaux-born Frédéric Opina carries a sentimental relationship with music of the past. Discovered by a track with a bossanova tint on social media (notably TikTok), the young Franco-Congolese has since traced a musical path close to those of Foufoune Palace artists (Luidji, Tuerie). That path involves a nearly systematic reliance on the expressive power of Latin American music, R&B, soul, and organic productions to cloak his lyrics, tinged with nostalgia, sensuality, and, now, striking sincerity. After the EP diptych Aupitape 1 & 2, his debut album crowns this intimate quest where Opina’s warm, rounded productions fuel memories of past relationships, family stories, and nights out. A vision that culminates on Cesaria, a track paying homage to Cape Verdean legend Cesária Évora at the album’s close, which lays out the entire program of Opina’s music. TD
Camille Yembe Jeune & laide (Tie Break Music/Wagram)
Born in Molenbeek, proud of her Belgian identity as well as her Congolese heritage, this singer as gifted as she is precocious cut her teeth in the shadows of Tiakola or Stéfi Celma before being revealed with her EP Plastique (2025) and then asserting herself with Jeune & laide. Thus you find post-grunge rock ((Paradoxale)), funk ((RepeatRepeatRepeat)), a synth waltz ((Rien à fêter)), an uptempo hip-hop dialogue with Ino Casablanca ((Autodéfense)), a bouyon whirlwind ((Rich)), a blend of calypso and soca Les Euros counterbalancing a “hymn to poverty” for someone who left home too early, at the age of 16. At its heart, a poignant ballad with drum’n’bass beats, Je ne l’ai jamais dit à personne. It is precisely at this point of great sincerity that the value of Camille Yembe’s proposal lies, which could have settled for a nicely arranged pop. Yet the fifteen tracks of Jeune & laide never lose their melodic sense, crafted with Armand Tournier (Swing, Bianca Costa): “The harmony of the album lies in what I embody. The way I cut the productions with my flow is mine, allowing cohesion without stifling my artistic freedom.” And we watch, captivated, as this ascent unfolds. SR
Read Sophie Rosemont’s review.
Chassol Funny How? (Ludi Magister/Créature/Bigwax)
After India (Indiamore, 2013), his Caribbean roots (Big Sun, 2015) and Hermann Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game (Ludi, 2020), the composer and pianist drew inspiration for Funny How? — a title chosen in reference to Joe Pesci’s famous line in Goodfellas — from the phrasing of American stand-up performers. For twenty years, Chassol had regularly set comedians to music, from Eddie Murphy to George Carlin via Dave Chappelle, whom he hailed at the Alhambra this winter and who is heard in the opening track In Comedy (And in Music). “Laughter is a serious thing, it’s obvious,” he says. “Laughter is as much a weapon as a shield, especially in the times we’re living through.” Faithful to his previous “ultrascores,” Chassol superbly threads a narrative through stand-up, cleverly blending comedy club sketches, punchlines, and sequences of choirs and strings. A couture-level musical work that, behind the cathartic powers of humor, sends political messages about daily injustices. Laughter (Is the Best Medicine), as heard on one of the more explicit tracks of Funny How?. FV
Read Franck Vergeade’s review.
Gildaa Gildaa (Gildaa/Grand Musique Management/PIAS)
There were a few seasons ago when we fell for Gildaa’s incredibly charismatic live performances, where this accomplished singer proved to be a top-notch actress, capable of making us laugh as well as move to tears. This is confirmed by her debut self-titled album. Refusing to choose between chanson, R&B, and jazz, nourished by Brazilian popular music she has listened to since childhood, Gildaa delivers a record as unclassifiable as she is, carried by a remarkable orchestral density. “My first instrument as a composer is the violin! she tells us. Then came the voice and percussion. I’ve always thought about music through harmony and rhythm, even before words…” Her influences? Rosalía, Jeff Parker, Bonnie Banane, or Sophye Soliveau. “I wanted this album to be accessible, cinematic, intimate, subversive, universal and mystical.” And if Gildaa is a born storyteller, she reminds us that there is plenty of space for everyone to project their own story onto it. Case closed. SR
Jowee Omicil Smiles (Bash! Village Records/Modulor)
For his eleventh album, Jowee Omicil founded his own label, Bash! Village Records, named for the “Ascending Beauty of a Happy Society.” A new testament to his visceral independence and his art of escaping any fixed identity. Born in Canada into a Haitian family, this remarkable multi-instrumentalist (sax, clarinet, flute, trumpet, keyboards…) who has been making waves on the jazz scene for two decades has never hidden his admiration for Miles Davis. That influence runs throughout the aptly titled Smiles, which adds an “s” to Davis’s surname. And it makes joy a profoundly spiritual, even political, act. On the free-jazz terrain, Afro-Caribbean or Oriental-inflected sounds mingle with the childhood gospel and a refusal to scorn pop. And when Omicil invites Dominique Fils-Aimé or Malika Zarra, the collective energy does not hinder his aim of telling his story — and ours, in the process. SR
LinLin Disco Inferno (Punk Records/Sony Music France)
If you feel you’ve exhausted the current rap scene, we’ll throw LinLin’s card at you with the certainty of overturning all your musical benchmarks — for the better. Her debut album, Disco Inferno, released on May 29, has since been on everyone’s lips who heard it. Her artistic proposition — conceived with Mob, her producer and longtime partner — has what it takes to leave a lasting impression: rap nourished by a constellation of influences, from disco to chanson to house, punk, and the Berlin School (the German electronic movement known for long hypnotic explorations shaped by analog synthesizers). A year after her feature with Ino Casablanca, LinLin is on the road to glory. LL
Lynn La vie me va bien (Le Sofa & Athletic Talents/Alter K/Bigwax)
La Vie me va bien may be a debut album, but Lynn is clearly not a novice. At fifteen, she was a normal teenage girl, swept along by the pop icons of the time and the neo-soul of Erykah Badu and D’Angelo; she also met rapper-producer Gracy Hopkins, who invited her to join his IXI collective. Yet it was only at the dawn of the decade that the precocious artist steered her soul and R&B toward the French language, which gives this warmly inviting debut its full charm: La vie me va si bien. Though brisk (a compact thirty minutes), this first effort tests the maestro within the Parisian artist. In the spirit of Enchantée Julia, Lynn displays her craft to make R&B sing smoothly in the language of Molière. A collection of tracks that unpacks the feeling of love and would not shame her British and American peers in soul and R&B. The music suits her so well. TD
Sārab Mit Warde (Sārab/Wasla)
A music of chiaroscuro, that is how one could summarize Sarāb’s work. Led by the enchanting voice of Climène Zarkan, the group takes us from one emotion to another with a sound that wears many facets: a few lines of Arabic poetry can give way, without warning, to a rock eruption or techno crackles. Sarāb plays with contrasts to better serve the message woven across the tracks — calling for the liberation of Palestine. In this album titled Mīt Warde, the Franco-Syrian singer does not hedge. When Depuis que je suis né·e underscores how the horrors of images of war in Gaza collide with our small comforts, Techno hamame (Reste-t-il un ciel pour te voir voler) testifies to a desire to see doves again in the sky. A pacifist and visceral record. LL
