Lawyer by day, rapper by night.
Diana Boss is a French music/social webseries created and co-written by Marion Séclin and broadcast on french digital platform France TV Slash. Its main subjects are the rap game, sexism/racism in entrepreneuship and family.
Malika is an intern at a lawyer's office, having to deal with the disavantages of her social background and an annoying co-worker named Yvan who got here thanks to his family. Outside of this job, she is also an amateur rapper who gets noticed by rapping superstar/radio host Boozer and gets to appear on his rap contest under the stage name "Diana Boss". However, as she tries to seperate her private life from her rapping activities, things might get difficult if her family or her workspace knows about it...
No relation to American singer Diana Ross.
This work contains examples of:
- Badass Boast: Obviously recurring in the story since it involves rap battles.
- Battle Rapping: What the rap contest is all about.
- Character Name Alias: Two guys participating in the rap contest are named Ichigo and Balrog while another contestant's named Kira.
- Character Title
- Disqualification-Induced Victory: Malika manages to win one of the contest's rounds after proving her opponent's text was plagiarized.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Moon'A (who plays as Malika) raps on each episode's ending song as well as on the series' theme song.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": Boozer is named Etienne but only allows a few people to call him that.
- Double Standard: Some scenes between Malika and Yvan deal about the subject of being treated as a woman vs being treated as a man in a workspace, as well as being white vs being non-white.
- A Pen In The Hand: Malika breaks one after hearing Yvan commenting a case of domestic rape.
- I Lied: Malika calls out Kira about plagiarising lyrics for a rap battle she won, citing the guidelines to her advantage. It turns out she didn't read them at all.
- Improv: One of the contest's challenges involves an improvised rap battle.
- Just Friends: Malika straight-up rejects Yvan as he leans for a kiss during a night where they talked about each other's life.
- Juxtaposed Halves Shot: Look up this page's image at the top!
- Living a Double Life: Malika the soon-to-be-lawyer intern during the day Vs. Diana Boss the hard-hitting rapper during the night.
- Missing Mom: Malika only mentions her mother as someone who left when her daughter was a baby. It turns out she actually ran away after being beaten by her husband.
- Mr. Fixit: Malika's father.
- Nepotism: Yvan got his lawyer internship thanks to his parents who are also lawyers. He also gets a special treatment from his boss.
- One-Word Title: Each episode's title is one word (Legitimacy, Negociation, Guilt and Perpetuity.
- Parental Issues: What Malika and Yvan both suffer from, in different ways.
- Malika's father doesn't want her daughter to get into the rap industry and wishes for her to become a lawyer.
- Yvan's parents want him to be just as successful as them but he doesn't think he's up to the challenge.
- All Periods Are PMS: During a heated argument, Yvan asks Malika if she's on her period.
- Plagiarism in Fiction: Kira used lyrics from a pre-existing rap track in order to win a rap battle.
- Protagonist Title
- Self-Made Man: Yvan's parents.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: This works for both Malika and Yvan for different reasons. Malika's father managed to get an internship for her daughter in a lawyer's office because of his work as a repairman for said office. Meanwhile, Yvan managed to get the internship thanks to his parents being lawyers and being friends with the boss.
- Shout-Out: Yvan is fan of rappers such as Ninho, Damso and PLK.
- After there was a turn of even in the rap contest, Boozer says it's just like an episode of Game of Thrones.
- Slut-Shaming: Some scenes involve the slut-shaming nature of various insults and how Malika and Lola try to deconstruct them. Malika also receives a lot of those whether it's during or outside a rap battle.
- Stage Name: Malika uses the "Diana Boss" pseudonym when it comes to rapping.
- Struggling Single Father: Malika's father went to prison before having to care for her daughter on his own.
- Sue Donym: Malika comes up with her stage name on the spot. Taking her last name (Benadia), switching the last two syllables and using "Be" for "Boss".
- Take That!: Rap battles have to involve hard-hitting lyrics after all.
- This is subverted during some scenes where Malika tries to come up with alternatives to misogynistic and slut-shaming slurs.
- Malika expects Yvan to be a fan of Booba or Nekfeu.
- Teeny Weenie: For a show that deconstructs the problematic nature of insults (especially of the slut-shaming kind), a lot of Malika's punchlines towards men refer to the size of their dicks.
- TimeLapse: During one scene where Malika and Yvan work until night.
- Title Drop: "Diana Boss" being Malika's stage name.
- Training Montage: A brief one happening after Malika is signed into the contest.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Malika and Yvan.
