Sandra Nkaké sings jazz and more at outdoor concerts

by Christine Pizziol-Grière

Article published on the 2009-08-15 Latest update 2009-08-16 15:06 TU

Sandra Nkaké
(Photo: sandrankake.com)

Sandra Nkaké performed at the summer music festival in Angers at the end of July. And as part of the Paris summer festival Quartier d’été, the singer-songwriter gave five evening concerts in a row in different parks across the city.

Nkaké sings an eclectic blend of jazz, reggae, R’n’B, hip-hop, funk and soul. She’s originally from Cameroon, and many of her songs have African tones.

The audience is captivated by the rich contrasts in her voice. She moves with easy confidence through sultry soul melodies and quick-paced rhythm and blues tunes. She can be gently whispering one minute, only to crescendo into a high-pitched scream in the next. 

Less than 15 minutes into the show, people are up on their feet dancing.

“It really makes me feel happy - actually I feel blessed - because this is what it’s all about: trying to meet people who  don’t know you, don’t know your music, and who are moved by the fact that you’re trying to be yourself,” Nkaké says.

She likes to connect with people on a personal and emotional level with her music.

“People, they don’t talk about music, they talk about how they felt from 5 years old to 85," she says about her fans. "I met this grandmother [who told me] ‘Oh, when I arrived I was soooo tired and now I’m good!’”

“Wow, ok, this is what I live for and I really like it!” she adds enthusiastically.

The title track of her first solo album, Mansaadi, is dedicated to her mom, who raised her two children on her own.

“She managed to show us so much strength and fun," says Nkaké. "She would, you know, start dancing or singing whenever she would hear a song that she loved."

"We were lucky enough to have music at home by Cat Stevens, Joan Baez, Tim Buckley, Nina Simone - a lot - Chopin and Bulgarian voices: music from everywhere,” she says.

“I never thought I would be a singer, but I would sing all the time," says Nkaké, who thought she would become an English teacher after her studies at the Sorbonne.

On her album, released less than a year ago, she sings mainly in English, which for her is the language of emotion .

In French she sings a song that she says resembles her: Georges Brassens’s ballad  'La Mauvaise reputation' - with her R’n’B interpretation.  

On stage, Nkaké's complicity with her musicians is palpable. She says they supported her after her mother died in a car accident, pushing her to get her first album out.

“I was always amazed by her voice,” says pianist Vincent Théard. “It’s been recently we’ve collaborated for this recording, but I know her as a little sister.” 

He composed 'A New Shore', 'Time Healed Me', and 'Fairy Tales' on the Mansaadi album. He also did the producing and mixing.

“We just worked together really closely. It’s like a home-made record. We did everything we could do by ourselves, so that’s really a nice experience,” he says.

Nkaké says there is a strong link between the five musicians on stage.

"The link between the five of us is a guy called Juan Rozoff, who is a mixture of Prince and James Brown, but a French guy - a French funkateer," she says.

"We all performed with him. And we have this sense of how to forget about what you want to do with music but just, how do you feel, are we together.”

Nkaké moved back and forth from Yaoundé to Paris from a very early age. No doubt this explains her openness to different cultures and musical styles. She has a desire to build bridges.

The 35-year old’s compositions speak of love, dialogue and being yourself.

Nkaké is also an actress: she recently played in the musical comedy Fantômas Revient with Romane Bohringer.

At the Paris Quartier d’été garden gigs, people love Nkaké: “An incredible show!” say Audrey and Lucille. For Dror, Nkaké is very talented and does interesting things with her voice and is also quite humorous. Another fan qualifies her singing as sophisticated, yet simple.

“I often hear melodies when I’m running, when I walk, when I talk to people,” says Nkaké. “Sometimes in the middle of a conversation, I don’t hear anything but music.”

She says her next album will have even more of a hip-hop and rock flavour. But it could also reflect her love of classical and African music.

Sandra Nkaké will perform at la Cigale in Paris on 29 October.