“My voice took a long time to settle down and identify itself”

Every day, a personality invites itself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Monday April 22, 2024: the author, composer and performer, Irma. She has just released “House of Cards”, the first single from a future project which will be called “Urban Folk”. She will also be on stage on June 11 at the Bouffes Parisiens and on May 15 at the Élysée Montmartre in Paris.

Irma is this female orchestra who suddenly arrived at the forefront of the musical scene, first in France, then in Europe and the world. His first album, Letter to the Lord marked a meeting and a fusion with a public won over to the point of becoming a producer via the MyMajorCompagny.com platform in 2011. The albums The Dawn (2020) and Douala Paris (2022) will follow. Today she is back with House of Cardsit is the first single from a future project which will be entitled Urban Folk. She will also be on stage on June 11 at Bouffes Parisiens and on May 15 with Nick Mulvey, at the Élysée Montmartre, in Paris.

franceinfo: House of Cards is folk and acoustic. You and a guitar. And this voice, which is heard more. It took a while to hear that voice.

Irma: It took time. We talked a lot, in addition, about this voice which took time to find, which took time to establish itself and to identify itself too, but which is here, finally!

It helps a lot of people who listen to you, this journey, this path of life, this way of moving forward, this introspection in a way. What causes you to lose your footing at a given moment?

It’s quite paradoxical because at the time everything exploded, it was quite crazy, because I was very young. And, the fact of having something that is very exposed all of a sudden… When the tours stop, when we are between two albums, we ask ourselves: “But without that, who am I?” and that’s where this reflection came from. It was at a moment when I had lost my voice a little, literally and figuratively, and I was wondering, but without all that, is- do I exist?

For what House of Cards ?

It’s this search to bring together opposites. “house“, it’s the thing that seems solid, constructed and “Cards” because it is very fragile. There is no solidity without fragility and vice versa.

“‘House of Cards’ is a way of talking about a breakup that went very badly and showing to what extent, from one day to the next, the things that seem the most solid to us can collapse without us can’t do anything about it.”

As if you didn’t have the right to happiness and it’s quite surprising because when you look closely, your family has always given you weapons. Your parents always let you follow your path, going to Paris, which wasn’t easy. Far from your sister who made you want to go on MySpace and to whom you sang your first songs. With the first two people who believe in it, outside the family circle and whose names are Gad Elmaleh and will.i.am. The story is like a fairy tale. Do you experience it as such?

Yes and no. That is to say, yes, in the sense that I am suddenly living my passion and all of a sudden, I can get up every day, pick up my guitar and play. But this is also where we understand all the impressions left on us by social injunctions whatever they may be, or all the traumatic experiences that we may have had, everything that that leaves inside of us. It’s that deep down, all these things I haven’t worked on prevent me from really enjoying it. And that’s what’s crazy at that moment, is that I’m experiencing all these things and from the outside, everything seems magical and deep inside, it’s a little hellish. And I dont understand why. Above all, I tell myself, you don’t have the right not to be well, because look at everything that’s happening, look at everything that’s happening to you.

There was never any victimization in anything you did. Besides, it’s something that you run away from, that you almost reject. For what ?

There is a quote from Martin Luther King that I always remember: “Darkness can’t drive out darkness, only light can do that“It’s something that has always stuck with me.

“I always told myself that it’s not by focusing on what’s wrong that I could bring positivity. It’s as if I had always given myself this mission to embody what I wanted see in the world.”

When we think of folk music, we also think of Jack Kerouac and therefore of his book On the road released in 1956. There’s a lot of that in the way you live. Isn’t that a summary of your life?

Totally. It is the fact of being at home everywhere and at the same time always looking for the other or rather looking for oneself in the other.

Let’s move on to the scene. You will be on stage alone on June 11 at the Bouffes Parisiens and on May 15, at the Élysée Montmartre in Paris accompanied by an American singer. These are really two completely different propositions.

So Nick Mulvey is a folk singer, but really folk in the very traditional sense of the word. The story of this meeting is quite incredible because it has only happened virtually so far. When House of Cards has reached more and more people, I receive a message from him. He writes to me that he listened to the song and that he finds it superb, etc. And that he looked at all my work. And at that moment he doesn’t know that during the two years I spent in New York, he was in my ears the whole time. I replied to him: the message you just sent me is incredible because you accompanied me for two years, especially in moments when I needed this peace that your music brings. And from there, he asked me to accompany him on his European tour.