This day in July 2022, Kamélia Boudjema is startled when she discovers a message on her phone. “It was a completely crazy thing, she says today. I couldn’t believe it. » In a few lines, a man claiming to be the facilitator of soul diva Alicia Keys’ international tour asks her if she can send an urgent invitation to her best friend, Aya Nakamura. Would she be available the next day to join the star on the main stage of the Accor Arena in Paris? Alicia Keys would like to resume with her Djadja, the tube of the French singer. “I hastened to call Aya, recount Kamelia Boudjema. She answered me : “Alicia Keys, the one I always listened to as a kid, wants to sing with me?” She accepted without hesitation. »
A few hours before the concert, Aya Nakamura, prevented, cannot participate in rehearsals. “In the meantime, Alicia Keys has worked like crazy to learn the words of Djadja. She was the one under pressure.” points out Samuel Samb, the referent of Aya Nakamura within her Parisian label Rec. 118. When the evening comes, the one who likes to call herself “the Nakamurance” does not have time to be properly introduced to Alicia Keys. Golden mane and high-cut pastel blue top, she joins her directly on stage, while the concert is already in full swing. In front of thousands of spectators, who were exulted by this sudden appearance, the American gave ” my sister “ à la Française before the two women embark on their surprise duet.
In truth, these arm-in-arm images with an American star are nothing but confirmation. It’s been several seasons already that Aya Danioko, who took as a pseudonym the name of a character in the series heroes, success of the 2000s, is no longer this unknown of the city of 3000, in Aulnay-sous-Bois, in Seine-Saint-Denis. She is no longer this singer, sulky pout as a banner, landed in the spotlight in 2015, thanks to Djadja, chorus for the summer.
A historic success
Born in Bamako, the eldest of five siblings, she arrived in France as a child keeping the Malian nationality and appeared in the musical landscape without anyone expecting it.
There is no longer any question, as many columnists did in its early days, of making fun of Newspeak, halfway between the lexicon of neighborhoods and that of the Internet, which she likes to bring out along her texts as a worthy descendant of a family of griots. The famous “You dead that”, in Djadja, or “I am in my behavior”, in Behaviour, are today two expressions taken up over and over again by a whole generation of listeners.
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