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This contribution intends to look at the current hegemony of “urban music” in the French phonographic industry by focusing on the notion of independence, mobilized by a heterogeneous group of actors in the social world of rap in France. Through the trajectory of Believe/Musicast, but also of self-identified “independent artists,” this paper aims at exploring the concomitant development of independent distribution and social-digital networks. These analyses will lead us to sketch out what could be a new layout for popular music, between the refocusing of the major record labels on distribution and the growing importance of intermediaries and pure players.