Wallen: A French R&B Trailblazer

French R&B singer Wallen has been a huge influence on the French R&B artists who’ve emerged in the past decade. Wallen has enjoyed success as one of France’s most popular R&B artists.

She attended a music conservatory in France as a youth, playing the violin. As a budding R&B singer in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, Wallen was inspired by the American R&B artists who dominated at the time, Aaliyah and Destiny’s Child. Wallen’s stage name is an anagram for her real name, Nawelle Azzouz. Her first album, “A Force De Vivre,” had an enormous impact on the French R&B movement, influencing many of the singers who would come after.

Wallen’s lyrics are personal, introspective, and socially conscious. Here’s the video for “Donna,” about a girl in the ghetto outside Paris dreaming of a better life, taken from Wallen’s second album, “Avoir La Vie Devant Soi.”