French Rap
French rap is hip hop performed in French, a large scene rooted in the suburbs of Paris and in Marseille.
It took off around 1990 with MC Solaar's smooth, literary style and the harder groups IAM and Suprême NTM, who rapped about life in the housing estates. North and West African and Caribbean heritage shapes its slang and rhythms. Later stars such as Booba and PNL moved toward trap and cloud rap. France is often described as the second largest hip hop market after the United States.
Artists it is known for: MC Solaar, IAM, Suprême NTM, Booba.
- Family
- Hip-Hop & Rap
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A scene
- From
- France, 1980s
- Also called
- rap français, french hip hop
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 3%
About 2,400 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have french rap among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
French Rap artists
Jul
GIMS
Ninho
PNL
Werenoi
La Rvfleuze
Tiakola
Damso
PLK
HamzaThe french rap artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.