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Jhonel is a slam artist, author and performer. Defining himself as a “modern griot”, he follows in the footsteps of the “masters of the word” to paint a sometimes ironic, sometimes empathetic but always deeply committed portrait of contemporary Nigerien life. He is no longer the spokesman of the powerful, as the jasare zarma were in the past, but is instead the acerbic witness of the injustices of the present, making himself the voice of minorities. He describes the life of the “little people”, the marginalized. The denunciation of the role of money in the contemporary world, the portrayal of a corrupt elite, the appeal to an imagined community are all features that characterize his writing.