MTV Iggy, February 21, 2012 “Je veux.” I want. In this song, which became a huge summer hit in France in 2010, Zaz shares a wishlist that’s anything but materialistic. All she wants is “some love, some joy, some good cheer/It’s not your money that will make me happy,” she sings in French, after turning […]
Tag: france
French ensemble makes old new again
Boston Globe, October 3, 2008 The notion of reviving an obscure linguistic tradition by means of six-part vocal polyphony might sound like an austere and dreary exercise. But one glance at the cover art of “Tant Deman,” the recent album by the Marseille-based vocal group Lo Cor de la Plana, should be enough to dissipate […]
Quirky, daring Mina Agossi turns jazz into adventure
Boston Globe, October 24, 2006 Purists, beware. You might not like Mina Agossi. The 34-year-old French singer is that beautiful, dangerous thing, a jazz heretic. Based in Paris, and recording on the London label Candid, she has turned heads and befuddled ears in both cities with daring reinventions of supposedly locked-in-time standards and styles. Agossi […]
Raging at injustice, he rocks the Casbah and beyond
Boston Globe, July 3, 2005 “Tekitoi?” Couched in the truncated urban French of text messages, police stops, and ghetto posturing, the title of singer Rachid Taha’s barnstorming new album poses an urgent existential challenge: “Who the hell are you?” In-your-face exhortation comes naturally to the Paris-based Taha, who brings his six-piece Arabic rock band to […]
Siddhartha Mitter 