Cardi B, Nicki Minaj, Nadine Shah

A brand new title signed by the English singer Nadine ShahTo start, “Topless Mom”Prelude to the release of their new album, dirty down, scheduled for release next month, his first since 2020. A voice, a rhythm, a style that is difficult to find geographically, you have undoubtedly felt it. The rhythm is African, it could be Afro-Cuban or Latin American, and the singer’s timbre, combined with his deep voice, has something in it that is not Western. A mixture which, when you are not a musician, is beyond analysis, but whose naturalness you feel. Nadine Shah stands at the meeting point of different currents and even sensibilities, which logically should not coexist. This is what makes it unique and worthy of interest. First song. “Topless Mom”Topless mom, it’s naturally her.

The song depicts a kind of dialogue of the deaf between him and a counselor, a mediator, who is supposed to help him solve a family problem. “Tell me about your mother who used to walk around your house without clothes.”, asks the advisor. And the other answers anything, a series of words, without head or tail, ending like this: Shariat, Diana, Samosa, Somewhat like a little girl who, not knowing what to say, invents a nursery rhyme that comes to her mind. In short, a completely unsuccessful psychological session. Nadine Shah’s journey has been quite an unusual one. Leaving Whitburn, a small coastal village in the north-east of England, where there was nothing happening, she arrived in London in the early 2000s to make her debut as a jazz singer. She had talent: a powerful voice, lively and brassy like the slow notes of the saxophone. This is how he became friends Amy Winehouse, who sang on the same stages as him and also lived in the same district of North London, Camden. They also went to the same pub, where they were both able to drink more alcohol than the regulars there. And it usually ended with songs for the customers. There was also a disagreement between them, as Nadine remembers, because Nadine has no proud memory of it, she stole Amy’s group of accompanists.

Nadine Shah has followed a very personal path in music, rather contrary to the norm. A second-generation immigrant, he was raised in a village in northern England by a father of Pakistani origin who ran a blind business, married to a woman from Norway. This woman of dignified and reserved presence seeks not spontaneity in her music but truth, well, her truth. Trained in jazz, she also uses the modal scales and rhythms of oriental music very naturally in her music. She was not able to address in her songs very pleasant topics such as the fate of Syrian refugees or mental illness, which had affected two of her relatives. As well as women’s problems, including endometriosis, a disease that left them infertile.

In Nadine Shah, in the seriousness of her presence, in the seriousness of her voice and in a certain dead black humor, full of a certain harshness towards herself, there is something that can be reminded nick cave, Since their debut nearly ten years ago, he has been a close collaborator of the group depeche modeartistic director ben hillier, who monitors his recordings. Depeche Mode, with whom Nadine Shah will soon go on tour, will open for her concerts this winter. We will be able to hear it exclusively on March 3 and 5 at the Accor Arena in Paris Bercy. Like many musicians, Nadine Shah also experienced a difficult phase when the Covid pandemic broke out, which certainly had an impact on everyone, but especially musicians in the United Kingdom with no help of any kind. She returned to the family home in Whitburn, her village in the north-east of England, where she had to care for one of her two ill parents. And it seems she stopped there. Two years earlier, Nadine Shah had begun her theater career, requested by a fan of hers, a theater director from Newcastle, who asked her to play the role of Titania, the fairy queen. Fairies, in a production summer night dreamOf Shakespeare, And, after a period that she herself described as a phase of turmoil, Nadine Shah made a highly anticipated comeback, releasing her next album, dirty downDirty below.

Now something else. The respective voices of three great Malian singers known internationally: mamani kitaFamous in France because she was the long-time backing singer for her name salif kita, oumou sangare And Mariam Doumbiahalf of the famous duo Amadou and Mariam, They were first seen under the name Khoobsurat in 2017 Amazon of AfricaWhich also resulted in collaborations with some of the best living African singers, such as angelique kidjo And Who is Rokia?,

Amazones d’Afrique’s first two albums, released in 2017 and 2020, were produced by a musician of Irish descent, but French and Parisian, Liam Farrellalias doctor l who was a drummer in another life Rita Mitsuko, Doctor L combined Congolese trance with electro and psychedelic blues in these albums. Amazon’s next album, musou danceThe film, to be released in a little over a month, was produced by the outstanding Irish musician took a jackknifean associate of Prohibit: As lol tolhurstOne of the co-founders of the group Treatmentand of Who is Rokia? Single too, of course.

Finally, I emphasize that Africa’s Amazon also has a reason to move forward. Proceeds from her debut album, released in 2017, went to a fund for women victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The deadliest war since World War II has been going on in this country for nearly thirty years: a tangle of conflicts that led to about 5 million deaths in 2015, as the French-speaking Canadian site recalled in 2015 . duty, eI am not talking about the displaced people. A region full of minerals, containing 80% of the world’s cobalt reserves, and other reserves such as tungsten, cassiterite and tantalum, which are used in the structure of our mobile phones. The money for which we kill and rape is not talked about much in the West, whose opinions elicit very selective compassion and outrage. “Kuma Fo (What They Say)”, These are the Amazons of Africa in a Very Good Trip on France Inter this evening.

Playlist:

Nadine Shah

“Topless Mom” ​​Alone

Amazon of Africa

“Kuma Fo (What They Say)” single

sechina

“Last Laugh” single

Cardi B • Megan Thee Stallion

“WAP” single

nicki minaj

“Red Ruby Da Sleaze” Album “Pink Friday 2”

plantoid

“Dog’s Life” single

dina egon

“Date Lacker” single

Maria Uzor

“Ventolin” Album “Soft Cuts”

Gunna

“Fukumian” single

yin yin

“Takahashi Timing” single

Listen to the show to know more…