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Zap mama
A 360° Turn
Paris
09/02/2000 -
Zap Mama started out as a group of five female vocalists who emerged on the European music scene in the early 90s and went on to make a name for themselves with wild a cappella harmonies, innovative lyrics and an irreverent sense of humour. The fivesome recorded two highly original albums and played hundreds of successful concerts -then disappeared from the musical landscape altogether! A few years later one ex-member of Zap Mama, Cameroonian singer Sally Nyolo, re-emerged on the music scene under her own name and went on to launch a successful solo career. Meanwhile, Belgian-Zairian diva Marie Daulne, another former Zap Mama star, branched out in a new direction, recording vocals on albums by Maria Bethânia, Wizards Of Oze and Spearhead (two groups who returned the favour by guesting on Marie Daulne's first solo album "Seven"). Deciding to keep the name of her former group, Marie Daulne has reinvented herself as a first-class solo act. Apart from the name - and backing vocalist Sabine Kabongo - Marie has severed all other links to Zap Mama, abandoning the group's renowned a cappella style and surrounding herself with a bunch of talented musicians which includes well-known Jamaican toaster U-Roy. Marie's new album, "A Ma Zone", takes the mixture she first experimented with on "Seven" one step further, fusing soul, funk and gospel with hip hop, drum'n'bass and African influences (c.f. special guest stars The Roots, Manu Dibango and Speech). "A Ma Zone" also finds Marie breaking away from French and singing more tracks in English, the highlight of which is her excellent cover of an Etta James classic. 
Born in Upper Zaire, Marie Daulne left her homeland when she was just a few months old and has only returned to Zaire twice - once at the age of four, once at eighteen. But Marie's roots have exerted a major influence on her musical tastes, awakening her interest in Pygmy chants from Central Africa and in ethnic music in general. Marie's early love of music was fuelled by the tunes she heard on radio and television as well as live concerts, which she attended regularly in her teenage years. "Music had a really powerful effect on me as far back as I remember", Marie says, "A melody could make me wildly happy or reduce me to tears!" When Marie decided to follow her musical calling she signed up for a course at a jazz school in Antwerp. The problem was she quickly grew bored with what the course had to offer: "I soon realised I didn't actually need it because the music I was interested in performing had nothing to do with jazz!" Marie recalls, explaining that her musical tastes were governed by a fusion of African chants, polyphonic vocals and melodies inspired by sounds from around the world. And thus it was that the Zap Mama project was born. However, Marie is at pains to point out that she knew the vocal quintet would not be the be-all and end-all of her career. "I knew right from the start that I wouldn't always want to do the 'a cappella' thing - I even had it written into my contract with my record label! I'm really passionate about human voices and what they can do, but I didn't want to end up getting locked into that particular style for my entire career." 
Hence Marie's radical change of direction when she reinvented the solo version of Zap Mama. "After recording two 'a cappella' albums (with the group), I decided to call a halt to the whole thing. I took time off to have a child and then I started meeting different musicians". Many of these new musical encounters happened in the United States, a country Marie is seriously considering relocating to these days: "I've got lots of musical projects on the go out there right now," she reveals, "and, rather than wasting time flying back and forth between Belgium and the States, I wouldn't mind going to live out there for a while.".
Marie insists that there's more to the U.S. than the clichéd image bandied about in the media of a society obsessed with business and money. In fact, she is at pains to point out that human relationships and solidarity exist in the States just as they do in other countries. At the same time, however, America is the archetype of the hi-tech society Marie satirises on her new album. "I would never totally condemn machines and technology," she says, "but I think we should focus on the human side of things too. We need to send out messages of love. We shouldn't forget that while we possess this great wealth of technology, there are other people in the world who don't. There are other people in the world who don't have access to proper medical care, who can't learn to read, who don't even have the right to leave their country, whereas we Europeans can quite happily jet off on holiday to their countries and relax!". And it is this ongoing social injustice in the world which fuels Marie Daulne's determination to "keep on singing and give people hope of a brighter future!"
Patrick Labesse
Translation : Julie Street
22/02/2008 -
21/11/2007 -
02/07/2004 -
