Zap Mama
Vibrant polyphonic vocals and Afro-pop rhythms that treat the human voice as a lead instrument. Soulful, rhythmic, and deeply global music for curious ears.
Vibrant polyphonic vocals and Afro-pop rhythms that treat the human voice as a lead instrument. Soulful, rhythmic, and deeply global music for curious ears.
Zap Mama sounds like a conversation between the ancient and the ultra-modern. At its core is the incredible versatility of the human voice, used not just for melody but as percussion, bass, and atmospheric texture. It is music that feels physically rooted in the earth while floating through a sophisticated urban landscape, blending Central African vocal traditions with the slickness of European production.
What makes Marie Daulne's project truly distinctive is the 'ethno-vocal' approach. You will hear pygmy-inspired onomatopoeia sitting comfortably alongside hip-hop beatboxing and neo-soul grooves. It is a dense, multi-layered experience where five different vocal lines might be interlocking like a complex clockwork mechanism, yet the result always feels effortless, warm, and inviting rather than academic.
Start with 'Ancestry in Progress' if you love the intersection of soul and global rhythms, or dive into their early 90s work like 'Adventures in Afropea' for a more stripped-back, purely vocal masterclass. It is the perfect soundtrack for moments when you want to feel connected to something larger than yourself without sacrificing a modern, rhythmic edge.
Zap Mama is a Belgian singer-songwriter, performer, composer, lyricist, activist, video artist and ethno-vocal therapist born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, raised in Belgium. Zap Mama sings polyphonic and afro-pop music, a harmonic music with a mixture of infused African vocal techniques, urban, hip hop with emphasis on voice. In order to explore and discover the vast world of oral tradition music, she travels throughout Africa, learning, exchanging and sharing information about healing songs, lullabies, mourning, and practising polyphony with griots (bards), Tartit tuareg women, Dogons, Peulhs, Pygmies, Mangbetus, Zulus and others. Zap Mama's worldwide success began with a quintet of polyphonic female singers, whose unique vocal polyphony style has inspired influences in American hip hop, nu-soul, jazz and elements of pop. Her song "Iko-iko" was featured in the film Mission: Impossible II. "The voice is an instrument in itself," says Daulne, "it's the original instrument. It's the original instrument. The main instrument. It's the instrument that gives the most soul, the human voice. We sing songs in French and English with African and world roots."
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