Zaz is a singer, author and composer. This is the song: I want released in 2010, which propelled it to the forefront, first in France, then quickly all over the world. For 20 years, she lived at a hundred miles an hour then confinement arrived and she decided, for lack of being able to do it before, to take care of her and take dance and singing lessons.
This new relationship to the body gave birth, in October 2021, to a new album that resembles it: isa and a tour throughout France.
franceinfo: We get it, it’s your most personal album, the one that represents you the most.
Zaz: It is the one that most resembles me today. Every album felt like me when and where I was, yeah.
It’s a great way to show off the woman you’ve become. We feel that you take more and more pleasure.
I discovered a lot of things. Before confinement, I had already chosen to stop so it was still a choice. I think I went to take care of Isa, things I needed to question. I changed a whole bunch of things and I found more nuances, more softness, more benevolence. By the force of things, moreover!
We have the impression that you have learned to become disillusioned in order to sing better.
“What comes out of your voice is who you are and I kind of had a loss of identity.”
I knew who Zaz was, but Isa, I didn’t really know anymore. I had to reclaim my feelings, my body, also learn to live just with me. And I took acting, singing and writing lessons. I tested things. I went inside to find spaces, to find other paths, other ways, other articulations. I’m still going to my goal since I’m like I am, stubborn, but with a form of resilience and I find other paths without hitting the wall and hurting myself.
It’s true that you have another way of singing on this album. It’s much softer, much more calm, much more serene.
Yes. I’m working on it ! I admit that sometimes I arrive and I start bawling a little again, but… Yes, I decided to take more pleasure, to be less also in the will to go get something outside all the time. Zaz was a lot into: “I want to save the world“. I want to help change it, but I no longer want to save it, I no longer want to wear things that don’t belong to me. learn to calm down, to accept when I’m less able to do things, to tell myself: I’ll do better later, tomorrow, it doesn’t matter, it’s always me.
You had armor to protect you. Tomboy, femininity you put it aside a little. We felt that there was this need not to fall, to protect yourself.
I made my weapons to survive because I built myself on a rather dysfunctional scheme. During the break, I had to review even things that shape my personality. I had to break beliefs. It’s difficult because you don’t know anymore, you have to let go, but you don’t know how to let go. You want to hold on to things, but you can’t hold on because the old stuff doesn’t work either. And at the same time, if I want to live my life and be free, I have to accept this thing, but between the head and the body, sometimes, there are worlds. Between what you know intellectually and embodying it, there are also worlds there and there, I really have the impression of having embodied myself, in any case.
In 2010, there was actually this song: I want, which allowed you to enter directly into the home of the French with Kerredine Soltani. It is Barcella who signs the song: Happy Days. You tell the story of the journey, the light at the end of the tunnel. What’s at the end is brighter?
“It’s important to live the way.”
We always want to get to the goal, we have our goals, ideas of what we should have or what we should be and in fact, we screw up. So we’re not really here anymore. You just have to live the way and that’s what I say in: Happy Days, is that life must be lived. You don’t just have to take what’s beautiful, you have to take everything, because what’s less beautiful is also part of life and it’s what also allows you to see beautiful things.
Charles Aznavour confided to this microphone that he was very proud that you could shine internationally, that your name was at the top of the bill. Does that touch you?
He touches me. I had a special relationship with Charles. I can not explain it. It was a lot of tenderness and when he died, it really shocked me. I was really touched in a deep place. He is someone who, through his experience and his story, has told about humanity, the relationship to oneself, the relationship to others, the human. There is like a filiation of humans, songs, artists.
Tell me the song: what you are in my life which is just amazing.
There are many authors who worked on this album including Ben Mazué. When I received this song, I just changed a word or two including the name. In fact, I have a daughter-in-law, it’s new in my life, it’s a special relationship that has no name. I can’t really put words to it because it’s being built day by day.
How do you view your journey?
I say to myself: I am alive!
Zaz will be in concert on April 7 in Annecy, on April 9 in Strasbourg, on April 10 in Vichy, on April 16 and 17 at Salle Pleyel, etc.