behind the scenes of Hip Hop Symphonique, the show that mixes rap and orchestra at the Maison de la radio

franceinfo takes you behind the scenes of the Hip Hop Symphonique rehearsals on Radio France, a show with technical and musical challenges, the 9th edition of which takes place Thursday evening with the rapper Josman.

The 9th edition of the “Symphonic Hip-Hop” concert takes place Thursday, November 14 in the Auditorium of the House of Radio and Music with rapper Josman as headliner. The 32-year-old artist, who has millions of streams on streaming platforms, will be the first to perform alone on stage, during the entire show, with the Radio France philharmonic orchestra. franceinfo goes behind the scenes of this show, which has become an important event in the urban music landscape.

This show will once again go through many technical and musical subtleties. There will be two of them to perform this show and accompany the philharmonic orchestra: the musician and composer Issam Krimi, artistic director of the event since 2016 and the conductor Dylan Corlay. But is it more complicated to mix hip-hop and symphonic compared to other musical genres? “It’s more the balances that we regulate, the sound, that everyone is comfortable”replies the conductor, “there are a lot of musicians, a lot of volume, so it’s about adjusting the ‘ears’, that is to say the feedback we get from everyone and making sure everyone is comfortable in this room.”

“What is most complicated is playing with the ‘ears’ and what we call a ‘click’, a sort of metronome in the ear. Which is very different from usual for an orchestra symphonic, because an orchestra never plays “click”, explains Dylan Corlay.

It’s all a question of timing, and above all synchronization. This is also the case for the translators of the concert in signed singing from the Intégraal collective, faced with the challenge of transmitting this symphonic rap to hearing-impaired spectators. “We work mainly on textual and musical works because it is the text that we translate. We actually design the message given by the artist in a bilingual way in sign language”explains Elodia, member of the collective.

Before Josman expected Thursday evening, other famous rappers like SCH, Ninho, MC Solaar, Oxmo Puccino and the group IAM visited Symphonic Hip-hop. Two musical genres which ended up marrying, for the better.