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ZAP MAMA
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.
Daulne’s music has also been
featured in numerous films and
television shows, including
Mission: Impossible II, and
recent popular TV shows like So
You Think you Can Dance?,
Brothers and Sisters and
Cashmere Mafia. She was also the
subject of a BBC documentary.
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In addition to her role as an
artist and performer, she has devoted 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.
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.
In 1997, the group signed to Virgin Records and released their
third album, 7, a recording aimed at a more mainstream audience
by incorporating elements of R&B and pop, and a cover of Phoebe
Snow’s “Poetry Man.” Guest appearances by hip-hopper Michael
Franti and Jamaican-born DJ U-Roy added to the album’s overall
sense of eclecticism.
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.
In August 2007, Zap Mama released Supermoon, her debut recording
on Heads Up International. An engaging blend of world, jazz,
pop, funk, reggae and soul, the album included guest appearances
by Tony Allen, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Michael Franti. Like her
previous albums, Supermoon received critical and commercial
acclaim, reaching #1 on the iTunes World and CMJ World charts.
In May 2009, Zap Mama will release her seventh album,
Re-Creation, on Heads Up International. The album will feature
guest artists G. Love, Bilal, Karriem Riggins and French actor
Vincent Cassel (‘La Haine’), and was mixed by Russ Elevado (D’Angelo,
Erykah Badu).
Over the years, Zap Mama has morphed from 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 Glastonbury Festival, the WOMAD festivals in
Adelaide and Singapore, Coachella Festival, Austin City Limits,
Roskilde, and the Blue Note Festival in Tokyo.
Zap Mama
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