By Katie Li

July 26th 2025

Once synonymous with the futuristic sheen of Daft Punk’s helmets and the ceremonious strut of Justice’s basslines, Paris’ electronic music scene can no longer be epitomized by a singular dominant sound. While better known as an epithet for the French house genre—think Air, Cassius, and the era-defining duos behind Discovery and Cross—the French Touch, to me, can be taken more literally: an essence of romanticism, hedonism, and carefreeness that feels distinctively European. 

Today’s underground scene possesses a sound untraceable to those predecessors; it’s rawer, more varied, and deeply internet-native. And yet; artists like producer-turned-rapper 888rks, whose sound could not be more different from the French genre that eventually birthed electroclash, subconsciously embody its instinctive spirit: guided by feeling and spontaneity over intention. “Super simple, easy. And that's how I like making music,” he tells us along the banks of Canal Saint Martin. “I just spontaneously do music. I don't think that much about how I should do everything.” 

Ironically, 888rks is wearing a hat that says “save America” (but with a French Touch?) and a rubber bracelet that reads I ♥ dubstep, hinting at his sonic inspirations instead lying somewhere transatlantic. Before immersing himself into the Paris underground, 888rks was raised in Bordeaux: a quieter city in Southwestern France better known for its red wines than anything musical. And while his grandfather slipped him wine and his rocker father raised him on a diet of The Smiths and the Sex Pistols, growing up in a city with no obvious creative paths gave him an appetite for something harder and stranger—feeding his growing tastes online with American and British rap, dubstep, and witchhouse. And though he himself is unable to pinpoint his own sound, suggesting it to lie somewhere “between electropop and rap”, that eclectic sonic lineage is apparent; not in genre, but in his DIY ethos and abrasive productions.

While better epitomized by his robotic, deadpan, and unexpectedly smooth Franglais flow, 888rks is a producer by nature and rapper by curiosity. Birthed of serendipity, his persona materialized from a friend forgetting his microphone at his house, adding a voice to his decade-long flirtation with Ableton-made electronic beats. Up until then, his palette was purely instrumental: fast, frantic mixes of techno, trap, dubstep, and eurodance. Although his earliest vocals are glazed in effects—autotune, reverb, fuzz, and hyperpop’s signature chipmunk pitch-up—a product of ambivalence with his rapping voice, it is these vocals that make his instrumental world of disjointed beats feel cohesive.

Even as his vocals evolve whether through newfound confidence or artistic choice, or as beats reject any fixed stylistic allegiance, veering from microscene to microscene—there is a sense of intangible recognizibility across his discography:

hardstyle: 888rk’s first 2023 single, “lonely lonely,” begins with a subdued piano line before collapsing into a hardstyle rhythm: with its genre-defining punchy and persistent kick that commands the body to jerk impossibly fast, yet rigidly as if under strict surveillance.

breakcore: Just months later, he released “dans ma tete,” which feels massively subdued in comparison. Its intro feels akin to PinkPantheress’ guitar intro in “Just for me,” whose similarity is further retained throughout the song with its breakcore drum pattern.

electropop: Perhaps his most well-known, “Nouvelle Drug,” a collaboration with wolfie2000, shows 888rks at his most digestible, centered around pure pop instinct with a hook so catchy, we barely need the translation.

witchhouse: There’s “livehigh,” which opens with a broadcast-style fuzz similar to Doja Cat’s “4 Morant.” Here, we hear echoes to his witchhouse roots, particularly in its Salem-style rudimentary, hi-hat-heavy drum patterns and grayscale atmosphere.

jerk: “close friends” operates in a different register. Built on Nettspend-esque, jerk-style evasive drum patterns, it denies the listener rhythmic resolution—forcing them to chase the beat rather than ride it.

For an artist whose sound darts between subgenres, languages, and time zones, it’s no surprise that this laissez-faire musical process partially stems from a comfort in the underground: where he can freely chase his own standard of perfection (which, judging by his consistent self-critiques on each song we mentioned, seems high) rather than concerning himself with the expectations of others. “I'd rather make what I like and stay underground than make music to please people,” he rather nonchalantly tells us. “So yeah, if it pops, it's cool, you know. But I just started making music for fun basically.” And Paris’ small, still-shy, still-experimental underground electronic scene suits that ethos perfectly. Yet, true to form, when local inspiration runs thin, he simply looks elsewhere; his collaborators stretching continents from Tokyo’s Killedbykira to L.A. 's now-defunct DRES to Montreal’s Wolfie2000. As the Paris scene slowly sheds its '90s–'00s electro legacy, 888rks is evolving alongside it. And he’s willing to depart from from his instinctual freeform creative process to keep up: with a separate English-language project beginning to take shape and a debut EP slated for September.

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Watch my full conversation with 888rks below.