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Zap Mama ReCreation
HUCD3159
UPC: 053361 315924
Release Date: May 26th, 2009
ZAP MAMA MAKES MUSIC FOR CELEBRATION AND RENEWAL
ReCreation features guest appearances by Bilal, G. Love, actor Vincent Cassel
We live in challenging times. Economic, social and political forces in every part of our interconnected globe are triggering an unprecedented transformation in the way we govern, the way we do business, the way we interact and the way we live. For many of us, the challenges can be overwhelming. That’s when it’s time to look at ourselves, our relationships and the world as a whole from a new perspective.
Zap Mama has a plan. This multicultural musical entity led by Afropean vocalist and songwriter Marie Daulne is sending everyone on vacation, and the first and only item on the itinerary is ReCreation (HUCD 3159), their new album set for worldwide release on May 26, 2009, on Heads Up International, a division of Concord Music Group.
In addition to a rhythm section rooted in a rich Brazilian vibe, ReCreation also boasts a guest list of high-profile vocalists including Bilal, G. Love, actor Vincent Cassel (La Haine, Ocean’s Twelve) and several others. The album offers everything the title suggests – a time to make a break, to renew, and to play. “That moment when you are relaxing and enjoying yourself,” says Daulne, “is the perfect moment to create a new person within yourself – to heal yourself and let go of all the negative aspects of your life. In those times when you relax, you recreate yourself.”
And in so doing, she says, we strengthen those longstanding relationships that are at the foundation of who we are. ReCreation is, among other things, Daulne’s reaffirmation of the important ties that bind us all – parent and child, lover and friend, artist and audience, singer and song, human and universe. Although constantly evolving, these are the dynamics that connect us to our loved ones, our communities and to the world. read more
Track Listing:
1. ReCreation
2. Vibrations
3. Singing Sisters (featuring Sylvie Nawasadio and Sabine Kabongo)
4. Hello to Mama
5. Do You Wanna?
6. The Way You Are (featuring Bilal)
7. Paroles Paroles (featuring Vincent Cassel)
8. Drifting (featuring G Love)
9. African Diamond (with Tony Allen & Meshell Ndegeocello)
10. Harlem
11. Togetherness
ReCreation features guest appearances by Bilal, G. Love, actor Vincent Cassel
We live in challenging times. Economic, social and political forces in every part of our interconnected globe are triggering an unprecedented transformation in the way we govern, the way we do business, the way we interact and the way we live. For many of us, the challenges can be overwhelming. That’s when it’s time to look at ourselves, our relationships and the world as a whole from a new perspective.
Zap Mama has a plan. This multicultural musical entity led by Afropean vocalist and songwriter Marie Daulne is sending everyone on vacation, and the first and only item on the itinerary is ReCreation (HUCD 3159), their new album set for worldwide release on May 26, 2009, on Heads Up International, a division of Concord Music Group.
In addition to a rhythm section rooted in a rich Brazilian vibe, ReCreation also boasts a guest list of high-profile vocalists including Bilal, G. Love, actor Vincent Cassel (La Haine, Ocean’s Twelve) and several others. The album offers everything the title suggests – a time to make a break, to renew, and to play. “That moment when you are relaxing and enjoying yourself,” says Daulne, “is the perfect moment to create a new person within yourself – to heal yourself and let go of all the negative aspects of your life. In those times when you relax, you recreate yourself.”
And in so doing, she says, we strengthen those longstanding relationships that are at the foundation of who we are. ReCreation is, among other things, Daulne’s reaffirmation of the important ties that bind us all – parent and child, lover and friend, artist and audience, singer and song, human and universe. Although constantly evolving, these are the dynamics that connect us to our loved ones, our communities and to the world.
For Daulne, the ReCreation process started in Rio de Janeiro in May 2008, almost by accident. She traveled there from her home in Brussels, Belgium, to record a single track with the help of Cassel, her longtime friend. Making an entire album was nowhere in the original plan. “When I arrived in Brazil, I was hit with an explosion of inspiration,” she says. “Everything started to happen. There was the beach and the music and the sounds and the vibe all around me. Even the language was inspiring. It was then that I said, ‘Okay, I’m ready to make a new album. A work of art.’”
Thus, one song became thirteen. Recording took place at various points around the globe – Brazil, Belgium, New York and Boston and Los Angeles – through the summer and fall of 2008, with a string of summer tour dates in the midst of it all. Drummer Karriem Riggins added several tracks after the Brazil sessions with the help of engineer Russ Elevado (D’Angelo, Keziah Jones, Boney James), who unleashed his amazing array of analog equipment in the mixing process in L.A. Despite the intense pace, Daulne says the process was too exhilarating and inspiring to be considered strenuous.
ReCreation gets under way with the title track, a brief introduction that features vocals by Daulne’s 15-year-old daughter, Kesia Quental Daulne. “She has the pure voice of a teenager who is still very naïve about life and the world,” she says. “There’s a fragility about her voice – something that hovers between a child-like innocence and a capacity for clear thinking and insight that borders on clairvoyance.”
The upbeat and uptempo “Singing Sisters” is a treat for Zap Mama fans of old. The track is a reunion of Daulne with vocalists Sylvie Nawasadio and Sabine Kabongo – members of the group’s original a cappella lineup in the early 1990s. “Sabine and Sylvie and I sang together on the first two GRAMMY®-nominated Zap Mama albums,” says Daulne. “That was the original sound of Zap Mama music – pure voices used as instruments. I started my career with these two women – along with two others, Marie Cavenaile and Cecilia Kandonda. The five of us were like the five fingers of a hand – all individuals but all working as one. I still think of them as sisters. Fifteen years later, this original sound and period has been recreated.”
Easygoing and melodic, “The Way You Are” is a duet with Bilal that examines romantic love, grownup-style. “It’s not about falling in love, the way you do when you’re a teenager” says Daulne. “It’s about standing in love – sharing affection with someone but still being responsible for your own emotions.”
“Paroles, Paroles,” a duet recorded with Cassel in Brazil, is the track that launched the entire album. Originally written and recorded in the early 1970s, this is an Italian pop song (translated here to French) that Daulne remembers from her childhood in Brussels. The man in the song is attempting to charm the woman with empty compliments, but the woman dismisses it all as just words, words (“…paroles, paroles…”). “He is using sweet talk,” Daulne explains. “But she says, ‘All your words, all your talking, sounds like chocolates and sweets that are consumed so quickly. I cannot trust you, because your words sound like candy.’”
Cassel reappears in “Non, Non, Non,” a different take on the inevitable tension between the sexes. “This is a song about flirting,” she says. “The man is saying, ‘Will you stay with me?’ and the woman says, ‘No, no, no…’ They want to be together but won’t really take the plunge. He keeps asking her, ‘Stay with me, stay a little longer.’ It’s about the flirtation with things that are forbidden.”
Daulne shares vocals with G. Love on the aching and tense “Drifting,” a story of what happens to a relationship when a man – a musician in this case – spends much of his time on the road. “This song was born in the middle of the night,” Daulne recalls. “I woke up and I had this melody in my head. Everything was there – the melody, the beat, everything. It was not me who was composing. The song was given to me by some musical spirit. I just executed the order.”
The album closes with the Afro-sounding “Chill Out,” a song about a journey that has come to an end. Daulne already expects the song to take on a life of its own when she takes it on tour. “When we perform it live, it will be beautiful,” she says. “I’m going to invite people to dance. When people come to a Zap Mama concert, they will learn how to dance.”
The time to dance eclipses the time to mourn. Daulne acknowledges that Zap Mama’s previous album, Supermoon (2007), was crafted with an undercurrent of sadness at the death of a close friend shortly before recording began, but ReCreation represents a new day – a happier one that bears a closer resemblance to the original brilliance of Zap Mama, and reflects the optimism of a new political and social climate around the world. “Sadness is a part of life,” she acknowledges, “but this new record is about the joy that comes with being reborn. Even if you can’t go on a holiday, you can listen to this album and feel renewed. This is how I want people to feel.”
Hit the play button. Make a change. Re-experience the positive vibrations at the heart and root of Zap Mama’s original vision. Enjoy some ReCreation.
Marie Daulne, the founder and fronting member of Zap Mama since the early 1990s, has lived a life that rivals Homer’s Odyssey. Filled with peril and triumph, globe-spanning quests, and a series of personal achievements that seem almost heroic in scope, her story is one of epic proportions in the annals of world music. She stands with one foot firmly planted in tradition and the other in the progressive sounds and sensibilities of a new century, and she consistently merges the two with an effortless grace that never fails to mesmerize.
Born in the Congo, but raised in Belgium, Marie spends her life crossing continents and winning the hearts of thousands of fans, while introducing her musical heritage to the world and uniting musical cultures through the wonders of voice, music and dynamic performance.
“My early childhood was filled with the music of my mother, the music of the Congo,” Daulne recalls. “We had the radio when I was growing up in Belgium, so we heard a lot of French music. And of course, American music was also very popular all over Europe. Since our mother did not want us to watch TV in our home, we entertained ourselves by creating our own music. We were very musical.”
After studying painting and art history in high school and college, Daulne made a pilgrimage in her late teens back to the land of her birth. In doing so, she reconnected with the pygmy culture, and discovered that the African music of her early childhood was still very much alive within her.
The resulting experience, she recalls, was nothing short of an epiphany – one that changed the course of her life. “That was when I became a musician,” she said. “When I went to the Congo, I hadn’t thought of being a musician. Not at all. But I was there, and I was standing in the middle of the forest, hearing the music that had been a part of my earliest memories, and it was like an illumination, like a light.”
In 1990, Daulne assembled four other vocalists and created the first incarnation of Zap Mama, an all-female a cappella quintet, or as The New York Times called it, “a utopian multicultural dream.” Adventures in Afropea I, the group’s 1993 debut recording on David Byrne’s label, Luaka Bop, wove together music from Zaire, Tanzania, Syria, France and Spain. Afropea became the biggest selling non-compilation album in the history of the Luaka Bop label and reached #1 on the Billboard World Music Charts.
The followup album, Sabsylma, came a year later and earned Zap Mama a Grammy nomination in the Best World Music Album category. Another critical and commercial success, this mix of a cappella performances and exotic rhythms further cemented the group’s reputation as one of the most innovative stylistically diverse acts on the contemporary vocal scene.
The exploration continued with the release of A Ma Zone, a 1999 release on Narada that included breakbeats, jazz lines on upright bass, turntable manipulation, and collaborations with Black Thought (of The Roots) and Speech from Arrested Development, spawning the popular Zap songs, “Rafiki” and “W’happy Mama.”
After a four-year hiatus, Daulne returned to Luaka Bop for the 2004 release of Ancestry in Progress. With a co-production credit going to The Roots’ Richard Nichols and guest appearances by Erykah Badu, Questlove and Talib Kweli, Ancestry upped the ante with layers of funk and soul atop the already well-established African, Afro-Cuban, R&B and jazz grooves. This album also earned Daulne another #1 spot on the Billboard World Music charts.
Over the years, Zap Mama has morphed from an a cappella quintet into the creative vision of one woman surrounded by talent from nearly every corner of the musical landscape. In the process, Daulne has toured the globe in support of her music, with legendary performances at the Montreux and New Orleans Jazz Festivals, the UK’s Glastonburry Festival, the WOMAD festivals in Adelaide and Singapore, Coachella Festival, Austin City Limits, Roskilde, and the Blue Note Festival in Tokyo.
Daulne’s music has also been featured in numerous films and television shows, including Mission: Impossible II and most recently in an episode of the popular series, So You Think you Can Dance? She was also the subject of a BBC documentary.
Daulne opened a new chapter of this continuously unfolding story with the 2007 release of Supermoon, Zap Mama’s debut recording on Heads Up International, a division of Concord Music Group. An engaging blend of world, jazz, pop, funk, reggae and soul, the album included guest appearances by stellar figures from around the globe: drummer Tony Allen; bassist Meshell Ndegeocello and Will Lee; guitarists David Gilmore and Michael Franti; pianists Leon Pendarvis and Robbie Kondor, percussionist Bashiri Johnson and many more.
ReCreation, Zap Mama’s latest disc on Heads Up, is set for worldwide release on May 26, 2009. In addition to a rhythm section rooted in a rich Brazilian vibe, ReCreation also boasts a guest list of high-profile vocalists including Bilal, G. Love, actor Vincent Cassel and several others.
In addition to her role as an artist and performer, Daulne continues to devote much of her time and energy in working to protect human rights and fight global poverty with organizations such as Amnesty International, Médicins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), CARE and the United Nations.
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