La Zarra is a character. In every sense of the term. Firstly because the Quebec singer, whose first album, Treachery, released this Friday, has personality and flair. An example: in 2016, she met with mutual friends Benny Adam, a producer and composer from Montreal. She launches him straight off that she can sing. “Him, a little cocky [arrogant], said to me: “Prove it!”. I told him that I had nothing to prove to him ”, she tells 20 minutes.
The story could have come to an end – and the anecdote was particularly uninteresting – if it had not continued a few weeks later, on another evening. He goes to the piano and plays the first notes of For you to love me again. She joins him and sings the lyrics of Celine Dion’s song. “He turned to me: ‘Oh yeah! So it’s true, you sing well! Go to my recording studio.’ Appointment accepted, she goes there the next day. It’s that simple. Four years of work then began. “I familiarized myself with the studio, I analyzed the techniques of certain singers like Barbra Streisand, Shirley Bassey, Edith Piaf or Barbara and I ended up finding my voice. “
His first opus is therefore the fruit of steps taken step by step. “I don’t know if this is going to be my only album. It was a crazy, very difficult experience. I have experienced a lot of things that made me get to where I am today. Each speaker made their essential contribution, so it is important for me to show them my gratitude. “. Of which act: in the booklet, the list of acknowledgments spans two pages.
A stage name like a poem
So much for the story of the artist’s genesis, very different from that of most of her sisters who like to bet on storytelling of the precocious vocation that appeared in childhood. “I’ve always loved singing and dancing,” she says. But when I was little, being a singer went hand in hand with being a star and, for someone like me who lived in Longueuil [une ville à une vingtaine de minutes en voiture au nord de Montréal], it seemed impossible to me. “
Impossible is not from Quebec. La Zarra eventually saw the light of day. We come back to it: he’s a character. “I wanted a stage name,” explains the artist. It’s not having a split personality, rather an alter ego. However, she does not wish to completely turn away from her civil status, Fatima Zahra. So La Zarra stood out as a matter of course. This name evokes the female figures who haunted the Parisian cabarets of a century or two with their banter, at the same time as it brings to mind Italian divas with intimidating glamor. “There is also a poem by Victor Hugo, entitled Lazarra, which is about a girl who runs, who sings, who is very determined. I told myself it was me! “
The singer leaves nothing to chance in her public appearances or in these clips. Even when 20 minutes the meeting for an interview, she appears, slit skirt and black hat, like a reminiscence of the vamps of yesteryear. “I love movies from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. I’m even obsessed. The way the woman was represented, it was so beautiful, elegant and powerful, ”she says, greeting her“ fantastic ”stylist. “We’re going to let sensuality speak without being vulgar. To go on stage, I need a hat, makeup… I need that. “
Eternal paradox of the singer resorting to a couture armor while in the texts of her songs she confides intimately on her disappointed loves and her ambitions. She assumes: “I am a modest person. When I started to write, it was difficult to indulge myself. It’s La Zarra who is able to talk about it, to romanticize it, to make it a little melancholy, not Fatima. “
“I didn’t want to be the serious singer who rolls her ‘rs’ and sings loudly”
You should never be fooled by appearances. Including with his music. “When they listen to my songs, people are surprised to learn afterwards that I am Canadian,” she says. The fourteen songs on her album are a compendium of the influences of this artist who “grew up with the hip-hop side”, “learned to sing with the French-speaking variety” and wanted arrangements sometimes eyeing the orchestrations of The Great American Songbook of Sinatra, sometimes oriental or classic inspirations.
She found her style, her paw, injecting dimension camp in his universe and a form of humor. “I didn’t want to come like the serious singer who rolls her ‘r’s’ and sings loudly because that’s not who I am,” insists La Zarra, who is counting on this cocktail to conquer the French market. “I made the decision in 2019 to go to France. I have had an attraction for your country for a very long time, ”she continues.
His first song, You will go away, runs well on radio and is warmly received by journalists. “Usually, it’s the opposite: first we reach the public, then the media follow. This reassures me a little because I have the impression that this is how old-fashioned careers worked, ”analyzes the singer who is eager to meet her audience on stage, the year next. “I think I will sing better in concert than on my album. My voice has evolved since the recording, she warns. On the record my voice is good but it’s even better now. “