Rap music is hot stuff at France’s ‘Les Flammes’ music awards

A ‘Les Flammes’ music awards trophy, at the Théâtre du Châtelet, in December 2023. LES FLAMMES Hamad Ba (real name Amadou Ba), 41, and Tom Brunet, 38, had long dreamed of creating a truly major ceremony to celebrate rap, R’n’B, dancehall and all the hip-hop culture-inspired styles of music that have been present in France for 40 years. And they did it. The second edition of the Les Flammes awards, which now also celebrates so-called “popular” music artists, will be held on Thursday, April 25, at the Théâtre du Chatelet in Paris. Over two weeks in mid-March, 280,000 people cast their votes on Les Flammes’ platform in 14 of the 24 categories featured in the ceremony, double the number of voters for its first edition, which took place on May 10, 2023. At the time, the ceremony was broadcast on the W9 private television channel, with a delay; this time it will be aired live and in prime time, in addition to being streamed on the YouTube channel of specialist online magazine Booska-P as well as on the video streaming platform Twitch. In 2023, 500 artists had competed in diverse categories, ranging from Caribbean-inspired tracks to rap performances. Some important...