By Lola Bailey
After many years in a music school, Kissed was eager to release his first song. Not Me was the title and he sang the song in English. “I didn’t want people to understand what I say,” he says.
“I knew my first listeners would be French and that is why my music was in English because I was like they won’t understand because not many people understand English well in France.”
Raphael, 19, has been making music since he was 12. His artist name is Kissed. “When I chose my artist name I really wanted it to have a link to love. I first thought about Kiss but that was already taken by the iconic rock band but then an English friend told me, ‘why don’t you put it in the past tense, Kissed’ and I loved it so I kept it. Shout out to Liam,” he says.
He went to music school from age six in Normandy. Kissed has learnt to play the drums and the piano and started singing at 17. He has known since high school he wanted to become a singer.
He has released many songs in English including Falling and Sunflower and more recently Why I Love You. The last song was part of a mixtape called Out Of Frame by Artistic Palace that was released on February 7. “They were like we’re trying to make a mixtape with French artists that make songs in English and some indie rock, indie pop type stuff. That was really cool,” he shares.
Eleven days after the mixtape was released, Kissed performed at a show at the Boule Noire in Paris. It was his first time singing at a concert but not the first time he took the mic. “I already did open mics and stuff like that, but this was the first really big thing I did because I feel like it’s a mythic place in Paris. Mythic, maybe I’m exaggerating, but in my head it was something very big,” he recalls. Kissed had heard that many of his favourite artists did their first gig there.
“The experience was great. I didn’t feel that stressed. I just did my thing and it felt so good. Afterwards, it was so cool because people came to you and they asked about your music, name, they took pictures, and that was so fun, I love it,” he laughed.
Originally from Normandy, Raphael now lives in Paris to pursue his career. He has many artists he looks up to including Tyler, the Creator, Camille Yembe and Bloufeet, who is a friend of his. “He is a French artist and he sings in French. He used to sing in English sometimes. He is great and I love his process. I love how he makes music and I love his personality,” Kissed tells.
His first artist name was K!$$ED but he recently changed it to Kissed to “simplify” his artist name. “It was hard to write and I feel like it was 2020 coded, if that makes sense,” he reflected.
“I felt like when you looked at my Spotify profile, you didn’t understand what kind of music I was making, who I was. It went in so many directions. You could switch from a pop English song to a French rap song and that didn’t make sense. It was because I didn’t even know what I wanted to do. When I started to figure out what kind of music I wanted to make, I was like, ‘I need to rebrand’,” Kissed says.
Following his rebrand, he released a song called Cinéma. “I really wanted to make it clear that I was going in a new direction,” he says. Raphael will release most of his new music in French as he “wants people to understand” him.
“It’s also better for me because I can speak more sincerely and truly because French is my native tongue and also I’m better in French than in English so I can say more stuff,” he adds.
When he was writing Cinéma, Kissed could not stop thinking about the cinema, what you do when you go to see a film, and mentioned Brigitte Bardot, a French actress from the 50s to the 70s.
Recently, on TikTok, he posted a video for a new song. This new song will be featuring an artist called 4leks, pronounced Forlek. They met at the Tyler, the Creator concert in Paris. “He is really good and I love what he does,” Kissed says. 4leks is also a French artist who makes music in English. He has a song releasing soon called Waste Your Time.
When asked about an EP, he says, “I will have to release an EP if another single does as well but right now, I should give myself time to release great singles.”
