Steds x Downers: gendering the two best-selling French rap artists of the 2000s

Abstract

Diam’s and Booba are two prominent French rap artists from the 2000s. Both have sold more than one million records during this period, and they achieved fame in and beyond the world of rap music, so we may describe them as stars. Yet, these stars have highly diverging public images with respect to gender. While Diam’s public image was consciously repackaged since 2002 to fit in a more feminine look, Booba’s body has been reworked during the 2000s to become more and more muscular and more and more staged as such. The gendering of these artists is also obvious in their lyrics and videoclip. This paper analyses the collective production of these gendered stars, and it pays special attention to the contribution of cultural intermediaries responsible for their critical reception, e.g. musical journalists. It shows how marketing strategies and critical reception commodify not only the musical achievements of these artists, but also their public images as gendered and racialized stars. This article demonstrates how the asymmetric treatment of Diam’s as a woman and Booba as a man can be interpreted through the concept of (musical) heterosexualisation.