Credits: Nitot / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 3.0.
Rapper Naps, famous for his hit La Kiffance, is facing rape allegations. According to the prosecution, the artist, whose real name is Nabil Boukhobza, allegedly raped a young woman while she was asleep in a Paris hotel room in October 2021. Naps denied these accusations "in the strongest possible terms."
The case stems from a complaint filed on October 1, 2021. The complainant said she had spent the previous evening at a venue in Paris’s 9th arrondissement. She then allegedly joined the rapper and his friends in a hotel room near Gare de Lyon. According to her account, she fell asleep and was awakened by non-consensual sexual intercourse.
An investigating judge has ordered that Naps be tried for rape before the Paris departmental criminal court. His lawyer, Nabil Boudi, announced that he has appealed the decision, saying that Naps fully disputes the charges against him. The rapper’s defense emphasizes the lack of concrete evidence. It cites an ongoing appeal of the investigating magistrate’s order, issued on May 15.
Formally charged in October 2021, Naps was placed under judicial supervision. At 32, the Marseille artist had made a name for himself with his debut album Ma ville et ma vie in 2015, but it was especially with La Kiffance, the summer 2021 hit, that he found major success. The track brought him widespread popularity and national recognition, making this case especially widely covered.
What impact this case will have on the rapper’s career remains to be seen, but the seriousness of the allegations and the ongoing legal process have put Naps in the spotlight for very different reasons from those that made him famous.