Yseult
The singer breaks ideals of beauty
Yseult made her big breakthrough at the age of 19 on the talent show “Nouvelle Star”.
© L’Oréal Paris
Dark skin color and very overweight – chanson singer Yseult had to fight for success. She has now shown it to everyone.
French chanson, a voice full of strength and tenderness and a passionate commitment to discrimination, racism, fat shaming and all forms of injustice: that is Yseult. The black French woman, who has just been announced as the new international brand ambassador for L’Oréal Paris, became known at the age of 19 on the talent show “Nouvelle Star” – comparable to the British casting program “Pop Idol”. The record deal and her self-titled debut album were not long in coming. But that wasn’t enough for her.
No compromise
Just three years later, she had had enough of artistic compromises, canceled the contract with her music label and founded her own: YYY. “It was extreme. I had to learn so many new things, from producing and managing to marketing, administration and law,” she recently said in an interview with the Guardian. “It was still worth it all,” she knows today.
Her music also changed with her newly gained freedom. Instead of electropop, dark trap beats mix in their ballads. Things get serious in the lyrics too. In her music, Yseult only deals with topics that really move her: self-doubt, psychological problems, unattainable ideals of beauty, judgment by others – a creative process that felt like therapy for the artist. She says: “It taught me to realize how much I love and hate myself at the same time, and to finally embrace this duality in me.”
And she does that with the creative uncompromisingness that she has fought hard for. Not only musically, also visually. In her artistic videos, she exposes her body – overweight and dark-skinned – without fear but with a sensitive eye. This is how she shows herself in the video for “Bad Boy” completely naked and with various lovemaking practices, including erotic bondage art.
Her biggest hit, “Corps (Body)”, a hymn to self-love, won gold with 15 million streams and earned Yseult the award for best female artist of 2021 at the Victoires de la Musique, the French Grammys.
Beauty for everyone
As a brand ambassador for L’Oréal Paris, the artist is now proving that it is worth believing in yourself and going your own way. “Dare to be yourself, beauty is unique in every way”, is the motto that she wants to spread together with the brand. In this way it is now breaking society’s rigid ideals of beauty in the beauty industry itself. Just one more proof of their success: “It feels like being able to open the gates of beauty for everyone.”