Jul, 100 gold records and an entry in the French variety?

• Jul certified her 100th single gold.

  He is the second Frenchman, after Ninho, to achieve this feat.

• But how are these certifications calculated in the digital age?

The most streamed French artist in 2021, French rapper who has sold the most records of all time, at 32, Jul stacks records like albums.

"I don't have time for you / I'm thinking about my career", he rapped in 2017 in

, a title from his album

.

Not his best track, though.

In any case, not one of those who obtained a "single d'or" certification, of which the Marseille rapper has just collected the 100th with

, his featuring with the rapper Morad appearing on the album

, released in December 2021.

Yet accustomed to being alone in the world, Jul is not the first French artist to cross this milestone as symbolic as it is impressive.

He was overtaken in this one by Ninho, the rapper from Essone, who certified his 100th title in March 2021. Behind these impressive figures, there is the question of their calculation.

Because despite the undeniable success of Jul, other sacred monsters of French music have existed before him.

So how can Jul get ahead of an artist like Johnny Hallyday and his 60-year career?

Its growth coincides with the dematerialization of certifications

In France, it is the Snep, (national union of phonographic publishing), founded in 1922, which awards these certifications.

For a long time, at least in a pre-digital era, the equation was simple: 1 record or single sale was equal to 1 sale.

But the rise of streaming platforms necessarily caused the collapse of this model and Snep dematerialized its certifications in 2016, without automatic retroactive effect.

And 2016 is also the year Jul and Ninho really broke through.

Since then, the rules of the game have also changed a bit, as noted by Luca, who maintains the Twitter account "Vente Jul" and lists all his certifications.

“In 2018, for example, Snep changed its methods by only including premium listening in its calculations, that is to say listening from paid accounts from streaming platforms, excluding YouTube, while the US industry takes them into account,” explains this 25-year-old Strasbourg engineer who is passionate about the Marseille rapper.

"That same year, they raised the threshold from 10 to 15 million plays for a Gold certification. The changes are quite obscure," he says.

Necessarily, "the performances" in certifications of the pieces of Jul feel some.

“Until 2017, Jul's albums, which contain around 20 tracks on average, had eight to thirteen certified tracks.

Since then, only his album

[2019] has reached this level.

»

An inscription in the variety

The UFO from Marseille, which will release its 17th studio album in 8 years this summer, however, still has a little way to go to dethrone the king of French song.

With nearly 5.5 million equivalent albums sold (1,500 album streams, equals one sale), he is still far from Johnny Hallyday, who points to nearly 100 million albums sold (and continues to sell some).

Speaking of French song, isn't it better, now, to include Jul in this musical register?

"Jul mixes the heritage of Marseille rap, very melancholy, but in a somewhat new form, which can also speak to a much wider audience, because there is also this inscription in the variety, or at least, which makes it soluble in French song", estimated, 

Our file on Jul

To see what the interested party thinks, but to hear him very seriously cite in some of his songs artists like Dalida or Cabrel as sources of inspiration or take up the musical theme of

from Start of the evening in

, we have, I think, part of the answer.

Culture

"My recipe is the real in the enjaillement", confides Jul who is releasing his new album

Culture

Jul, Ninho and Orelsan at the top of the most listened to artists in 2021, according to the annual Snep ranking

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