With 1.3 billion plays of his videos on Youtube, international collaborations with Skepta and Quavo and nods from the world’s biggest sports stars like Pogba and LeBron, Niska is French music’s latest break out superstar.
The French-Congolese rapper hails from Évry, Essonne area, a suburb 25 km from Paris. In just under 3 albums and five years, his blend of instantly catchy melodies and hard-edged trap has put him on track to take advantage of pop music’s new polyglot landscape to become an international star (a quarter of his billion streams have come from outside France)
Why has his music connected? It’s a fresh blend of African beats, woven into pop hooks and edgy street tales. His hit singles are liberating hymns that free the body and the mind, delivering an addictive adrenaline rush. “I’m the epitome of what rap has become: unselfconscious, music for everyone” says Niska. Ruling French radio and the charts, he has released 21 singles, his last album Commando went diamond, selling more than half a million copies. Five singles have gone platinum and five have gone diamond. He is the reigning Sun King of the French charts with the decorations to show for it.
Niska’s birth name is Stanislas Dinga Pinto. The name Niska is derived from the nickname version of his first name “Stany” – but put in reverse with the “t” changed to a “k” – in the French argot slang of verlan. He has his own wildly popular clothing brand called Charo, which he is always dressed in. “Charo” is an abbreviation of “charognard”, French for scavenger, a reference to his determination to succeed by any means necessary, on his way to the top. “It’s all in the scavenging” says Niska of his relentless drive.
This opportunistic attitude was evident at the beginning of his career, when French FIFA World Cup 2018 winner Blaise Matuidi used one of his dance moves for a goal celebration. The move was taken from Niska’s Freestyle PSG video, itself a tribute to the beloved Parisian football club. Soon the whole team were copying the goal celebration in formation, including arguably football’s biggest star Neymar. Suddenly, a hardcore French rap freestyle was promoted to millions of football fans. With the French squad listening to Niska for motivation, he became the musical mascot of the World Cup winning team. Around that same time, he was invited to take to the stage alongside basketball superstar LeBron James, who was visiting the Paris suburbs with his More Than An Athlete Academy project aimed at inspiring young people. The NBA player let out a “pouloulou”, one of Niska’s now legendary catchphrases from his hit Réseaux (France’s most-played track in 2018 with 300 million views). Colossal numbers like this are an everyday fact of life for Niska, who has a total of eight million fans across social media. His YouTube channel broke through the one-billion-views ceiling just a few weeks after his last album was released nearly two years ago.
It’s a Franco-Congolese success story about a boy from Évry who grew up in the Champtier-du-Coq council estate where he still lives – when he’s not headlining a festival or recording in his studio in the UK. His hits are so addictive they are crossing language lines and international borders. A remix of Réseaux went Gold in Germany. The same mega-hit was remixed with verses from two of the rap worlds biggest stars; British diva Stefflon Don and Migos frontman Quavo. The remix was certified as Diamond internationally. Diplo (producer of Madonna, Beyoncé and Justin Bieber) gave him a track on his Europa EP. Niska is one of the rare innovative French language artists who resonates in the English speaking world.
While he has experienced whirlwind success, he remains characteristically grounded and focused on the future. “My approach works, and I think I’m on the right path. I’m only just beginning to get to grips with my music, to understand it.” Stanislas Dinga Pinto may be confident in his direction, but he isn’t taking his eye off the ball either. In just three albums (Charo Life, released in 2015 before Zifukoro [2016] and Commando [2017], which is more accurately called a mixtape), Niska has reached heights that very few artists, irrespective of genre, manage to attain over the course of their career. A household name in France, the world is next.
Niska embodies the spirit of present-day France: multicultural and confident, just like the country’s World Champion football team, who he supported all the way to the top of the podium. “I wasn’t aiming to shake things up with my new album. I was consolidating the direction I took with “Commando”, in the hope that the public would continue listening.” And he needn’t have worried. Commando sold almost 600,000 copies, securing its place within the handful of French rap classics from the past decade. Niska too the music out to a live audience, the experience of seeing the scale of the support has finally let him appreaicted its impact. “When I did my very first festival, I was scared. I didn’t feel like the crowd was behind me. But 30,000 people started singing my songs, they knew the lyrics by heart, even the lesser-known ones. That’s when I realised that my music has an impact on people across France. They tried to make me think the only people listening to me were people from the estates, but that’s not true. I saw the truth with my own eyes.” Niska symbolises a proud, multi-faceted France, the leader of a subculture that is beginning to be accepted on a wider scale. And his new album is a fresh opportunity to celebrate him as such.
