Selah Sue is a Belgian singer-songwriter and performer. His first album, released in 2011, titled Selah Sue, propelled it to the front of the stage and to the top of sales. She worked with Guizmo, Nekfeu, and also Prince. His title Raggamuffin is classified in the nuggets, the essentials. After seven years of discographic absence, Selah Sue is back with a new album, persona, and is on tour throughout France.
franceinfo: We have the impression that this new album is about letting go!
Selah Sue: Intimate, perhaps! When I write a song, it’s always pure and honest, really like a diary. Each song is written by a different personality so it’s really intimate.
Does that mean that in fact, it’s also a meeting with the people who are part of you, who have lived with you since adolescence?
Yes, the last two years, during confinement, the personalities on the album were really the ones I discovered or rediscovered. It’s not easy because there are personalities that I don’t really like, like the melancholic or the critical. It’s also a way of accepting myself. It’s a form of therapy that I do with my psychiatrist, but also in the album.
Did the music play a calming role?
When I write and sing, that’s where I can let go of my emotions. It’s a good way for me to let go.
“Music is a good way for me to place my emotions.”
You needed, because this rise was meteoric, to put the music aside, not to listen to it and to take care of your children because they finally became your pillars.
Yes ! For me, it’s really important to be there. I had been touring all the time for ten years, doing interviews…it was cool, but it was too much. It was a real decision to take a long break just with my children. When I wrote this album a few years ago, it was just the mother talking, but now I’m not just the mother anymore, I’m also other personalities. Not just a very sensitive woman, but also a woman with strength.
Our first meeting took place at the time of the single Alone, included in the album Reason in 2015. You are no longer the same. Your gaze was lowered and you felt that there were demons. It’s better today ?
Yes, happy. And I do not know why. Maybe because I’m older… I also stopped the drugs. It is also a big step. Antidepressants saved my life when I was 18, to get better, but now I don’t need them anymore and that’s good!
success with Raggamuffin and this first album, which sold more than a million copies, did not weaken you, quite the contrary, because you had already done this psychological work.
By stopping the antidepressants, I still made three burn out because with it, it was possible not to feel the pressure too much. It was easier because I had no limits and I could go beyond them.
I would like to talk about the eclecticism of this album. There are a lot of things inside, at the same time, that’s kind of how you are. There’s pop, electro, drum and bass, 90s rap, soul. Is soul the basis?
Yes, it is the music of the soul. I think when you’re 14 or 15, you’re really open. And when you listen to the music, you take everything!
There are also duets with rappers, because you like to be a little rowdy. Is that also part of your evolution?
I really like rappers and I think it works very well with my voice. I think it’s very cool, but I’m very sensitive to what kind of rap, it must be deep. And the sound of the voices is also very important.
Do you like your voice? It took you a long time to adopt it, to love it!
Yes. I love my voice and when I say that now I think: you’re too arrogant, you have to be modest. But no ! Why not ! It took me a while to like it and I especially think of the way I use it to rap, for example. I had done it a little bit with Raggamuffinbut with Kingdom when I do that, I am sure of myself.
Happy to go on stage? Oh yes ! See the faces without the masks. I hope people can love each other, kiss each other! And then also this energy, I really need that. It’s just a big explosion of love on stage, really.
Selah Sue on tour throughout France: April 10 in Rennes, June 11 in Amiens, July 23 in Brive and many other dates.