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French Pop,Afro-Caribbean
Soha
| France
Booking-Agent:
Frank Abraham
+49 30 261032920
fa@f-cat.de
SOHA: the nomad from here and elsewhere
The desert winds course through her veins and her voice is delicately suffused with the traditional Algerian songs of her mother. It is to her mother, a native of Nubia, that she owes her love of music. Her parents are Sahrawi from the Western Sahara and members of the Ouled Soltane tribe (children of the Sultan). This background bequeathed Soha her nomadic spirit, craving for freedom and independence, and fiery temperament.
Unaffected, fresh and spontaneous, Soha embodies a mixture of cultural and ethnic roots.
Soha’s roots are here and elsewhere.
SOHA: the family
Soha was born and raised on a housing estate in north Marseille, where she was the youngest of eight brothers and sisters. “Everybody in the family had their own type of music. I tried to take on board their tastes, making an effort to listen carefully at every opportunity.”
Whilst the rest of the family was into disco, funk and soul, her elder sister gave her a love for the words and music of la chanson française: Brel, Aznavour, Lavilliers and Cabrel. Soha began - quite naturally - to sing.
SOHA: so what?
Soha started out by singing along to dub ‘versions’ on vinyl. She worked at it and then decided to go for it, to make real the dreams cherished since childhood. She quickly became interested in live performance; again, no sooner said than done! It was as a reggae artist that Soha forged a name for herself.
“From the word ‘Go’ I refused pointblank to put up with being a jobbing backing singer, which is what happens to women all too often. Having to deal with a scene that was pretty much all male gave me greater desire, strength and courage. I had to prove myself, not back down, and that’s where the name Soha comes from, it sounds like ‘so what’ in Jamaican.” It’s a tough world for women to break into, but over time Soha carved a place for herself as a dancehall artist thanks to her great live skills and her own particular quirk: her lyrics are a harmonious mixture of French, English and Jamaican. “I never wanted to join a sound system, I wanted to remain free.” Amongst the musical influences that had a strong impact on her own creativity are “the smooth-as-gold voice of Dennis Brown, and Tanya Stephens, a small woman who was a real big influence on me and who made a big name for herself as a dancehall artist.”
SOHA: wisdom
“I spent those years honing my craft, but I still didn’t feel ready to branch out.” So was it her mother’s silky smooth voice that inexorably led her to discover female jazz singers? Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald…gripped by a powerful emotion, Soha discovered them… listened to them… loved them.
Soha was now immersed in gentler sounds, which was exactly what she needed to fully develop and grow as an artist. Her repertoire changed, her voice improved: “I had a real need to find peace by spreading some of it around myself.”
SOHA: Latino time
Meeting Celia Cruz would prove a decisive turning point. “Her Cuban influences reminded me so much of Marseille. Those are rhythms I know. They’ve always been inside me because they are mostly African in origin. Celia opened my ears to them.”
Soha took time out to immerse herself in afro-Cuban recordings from 1930 to 1950. She found within them a source of new energy, the trigger for a new project: her own.
SOHA: the album
Several long years passed before she finally secured a recording deal. What with fruitless collaborations and dead-ends, it was a chaotic process that took time. But her persistence was ultimately rewarded. Soha demands respect and makes her own way, because she is strong, determined and talented; and because she doesn’t cut corners. She finally succeeded in assembling a team and getting her project up and running. “I wanted to create an album that mingled all the music that I love and that lives within me. I imagined and created it like a painting, layering successive touches of musical color.”
Soha sought to create multi-colored atmospheres with the varied images, smells and tastes… of travel.
Soha’s limpid vocals also offer many different shades, as does her music, which is a delicate mixture of sun-kissed sounds that evoke in turn reggae, jazz, Cap Verde, Cuba, and elsewhere…
Twelve tracks that run the gamut from optimism, to hope, to melancholy, all delivered in a mixture of Molière’s French and Neruda’s Spanish.
An album of natural elegance…just like Soha.
