Without responding to any code, but by imposing her own, the Franco-Congolese singer Theodora, 22, has become an essential musical figure in record time. On Saturday, she won four trophies at the Victoire de la Musique.
Published on: 02/14/2026 - 07:42 Modified on: 02/14/2026 - 11:06
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Barely landed on the musical landscape, Theodora won four trophies, Friday January 13, at the Victoires de la Musique in Paris, which also crowned Quebecer Charlotte Cardin and the revival of Disiz, from rap to song.
The "Boss Lady", who was the favorite, won the prizes for best audiovisual creation for "Fashion Designa" (14 million views on YouTube), female revelation, stage revelation and best album with "Mega BBL".
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“I especially want to thank all the projects that came before me and that allowed my project to be better understood,” like Aya Nakamura or the rapper Tiakola, cited the 22-year-old star who has been wildly successful for about a year.
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“Mega BBL”, reissue of a first mixtape entitled “Bad Boy Lovestory”, with its abundant eclecticism alongside Jul and Juliette Armanet, appears as the fourth best-selling album of 2025.
Theodora's music doesn't fit into any box, even if it borrows from different styles such as hyperpop, rap and Afro-Caribbean sounds. She jumps from one atmosphere to another: dancing on “Fashion Designa”, intimate on “They all laugh in my face” or melancholy on “melodrama”, a big success in a duet with Disiz.
“I do it for all the weird black girls”
“I make music which is a synthesis of several influences, different cultures, different musicalities,” she deciphered in “Quotidien” at the end of 2024.
Her clips are very elaborate and her looks exuberant.
Proof that she is already leaving her mark on an entire generation, her nickname "Boss Lady" has become an expression used in everyday life to describe a powerful woman, who manages her projects without concession.
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“I do it for all the black girls who are a little weird,” she said with a smile while winning a prize in 2025 at the Flammes, a ceremony for hip-hop and its trends. “This project is really for the children of the diaspora,” she said.
Born in Switzerland to Congolese refugee parents, Lili Théodora Mbangayo Mujinga - in the civil registry - moved with her family from city to country.
From preparatory class to music
“My parents were political refugees, we lived in Switzerland, Greece, the Congo, Reunion Island, then Bordeaux, Rennes and Saint-Denis. And that really impacted me musically, because my father had the reflex to listen to the music of each country we were in each time,” she explained to the specialist site Abcdr du son en 2024.
She says she draws strength from this journey, particularly from this father who manages to complete his studies to obtain his medical diploma in his forties.
A good student, the young woman enrolled in preparatory class, with in the back of her mind the idea of getting involved in politics, beyond the regional council of Brittany of which she was a member.
"I've had too many lives. I played high-level sport too. My mother really wanted us to dream as much as possible. She signed us up for sport, this, that... to be able to fit into lots of different environments," she adds on France Inter.
Humor to celebrate your body
When she moves with her beatmaker big brother, Jeez Suave - who will become her manager - into an apartment in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) in 2022, Theodora puts everything on music.
She burst into the music industry in September 2024, with “Kongolese under BBL”, which was a hit on social networks. With bouyon sounds, a genre coming from Dominique, she combines self-affirmation and humor (“And my big breasts often hurt my neck”) to celebrate her body.
The singer, who considers herself queer, uses her notoriety to send messages about inequalities.
“When you're a black girl and you make music in France, you have to fight five times harder. Because no one likes black girls,” she said in a recent interview with the American music magazine The Fader.
“If I hadn't managed to find a place for myself, you wouldn't even see me, because we live in a racist country,” assured the singer, committed against the far right.
In December, she protested after a TikTok story by the president of the RN, Jordan Bardella, covering her music.
“I will never share your ideas, your values, nor your harmful, dangerous and deeply contemptuous political projects towards people like me,” she insisted on Instagram.
With AFP
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