This is is certainly a surprising way to introduce my article, but the first idea that came into my mind when I began to write, was that I'd probably be considered by the readers as an alien.
Indeed, on the contrary of most of the artists who have the opportunity to write a bit of their story on Music Talks, I'm not American, English, Australian or New Zealander. Indeed, I am a French 24 years old singer, born from a Hispanic mother and a Tunisian father, living in Grenoble, a city located in the south east of France and surrounded by the Alps.
As far as I remember, I've always been singing. My mother often tells me that I started singing even before talking and even if it’s a bit exaggerated, it rather well sums up my taste for singing and everything that revolves round this.
Otherwise, it was essential for me to go until integrating my relish for music into my professional career. Hence, after 5 years of studies in a higher education establishment, I got a Master Degree in artistic projects directing and I am presently working as a freelance artistic agent, for artistic event agencies on Paris and my region.
Though I took several singing classes and took part from a choral for some time, I overall learn't how to sing as an autodidact, and I am still working on my vocal technicity.
One of the specificities of my artistic sensitivity is that I've always been much more attracted by Anglo-Saxon music and aesthetic, than by the French ones. Indeed, despite all that I learnt about what we, French people, are proud to call « L'exception Française », I've never really been convinced, and even more, after some reflection and experience as a singer, model and dancer, I have rather been puzzled about the artistic and cultural French system.
Indeed, the French system tends to nip the artistic initiatives in the bud and consequently the creativity itself, essentially by making of Art and Culture, music included, a state monopoly, a private field of the State.
Consequently, this political way means to let very little place to the private initiatives of the artists, or even of the citizens who would head for artistic projects.
On the contrary, as an artist and citizen, I'd rather have a preference for the Anglo-Saxon mentality which, despite its loopholes and drawbacks, gives much more place to undertaking mind, inventiveness and audacity, by considering music as a business like another, or anyway practically.
The word « alien » also well qualifies the way I would like people to perceive me and my music when they are listening to it. Indeed, my wish is that my listeners feel themselves carried away in an atmosphere with a voice and a melody completely coming from another place of the universe, far from their common world, at least the time of a song. I am a dreamer and an idealist and it inevitably flows from the music I'm inspired to create and release.
Though my music is a real mix of the genres, with overall, R'nB, hip-hop, soul, electro and pop, regarding my lyrics, I'd rather say that they are often very close to soul and blues lyrics, even in my rapped verses.
Indeed, despite my academic background and my relish for politics, society subjects and debates, when it deals with writing songs, it's always about me and my very personal feelings. And the reason why my lyrics always look like a kind of personal therapy is that my inspiration comes from feelings taken on the spot, in very specific moments of my everyday life.
These taken feelings are always as extreme as contradictory, since in my songs, I'm alternately expressing sadness, happiness, anger, hope, melancholy, passion, indignation or resignation, always in their most extreme expression. Like a soul or blues singer, I'm writing and singing with all my hypersensitivity, as if I was always exposed. And it's the way music concerns me the most.
For me, the tragic register is the most beautiful one. Even if I'm very fond of humor and I never spend only one day without laughing a lot, drama and tragedy are what keep concerning and inspiring me the most in my creation. I'll always feel more concerned about a Shakespearian Tragedy than by the best Moliere's Comedy. The tragic is what better defines my personal sensitivity.
Otherwise, as I rap it in one of my first songs, « singin' is my outlet », which means that for me, writing and singing my songs are like confiding me in a private diary. To understand it, you have to know that I am a very secretive and reserved person when it deals with talking about me, my feelings and my pain.
By the way, I have to admit that it took me some time to succeed in beginning writing this article.
Indeed, you can ask me to write or talk about whatever subject, even if I don't know anything about it, I'll always find a lot of things to say, because I love expressing ideas and opinions and finding the arguments which allow me to do it well. But when it's about talking about me and myself, it becomes very hard for me to find the appropriate words. In fact, my songs are the only way I've found to do it. Hence, I never feel as genuine, free and vulnerable as in my songs.
You'll never see me the way you see me when you listen to my music. Because listening to my music is undoubtedly like reading deep in my heart, spirit and soul. My music steadfastly represents the real person I am : my personality, as much as my state of mind, my fears, regrets, hopes and dreams. And I believe this is the most important idea you have to remember from my article.
The release of my second EP « Dream and Reality » in July 2015, marked a real step on my musical path, as it has been through my work on this EP, as much in terms of lyrics, instrumentals, atmosphere, as in my way of singing and toasting, that I have strengthened my musical identity and what I want to keep developing and testing in music.
Now that I've found my musical identity, though of course, I have to refine it and I still have a lot to learn, my wish is to focus on the interpretation of my songs on the stage. Indeed, the sensation of appearing on stage is something I love and I want to work on. In fact, what I want is the stage to become my playing field, a place where I can express myself like nowhere else and pass on feelings and emotions, until I succeed to be in osmosis with my public.
I consider the musical field as a little world, with its own specific rules and codes, which we only learn by trying out and making our own progress and mistakes. Indeed, this little world is defined by a complexity that we wouldn’t suspect from the outside.
Also basing me on my own personal experience, if I had to give a piece of advice to someone who tends to take up music, here is what I would tell him or her : If you steadfastly believe that your music has something special, you must always stay strong against the skepticism of other musicians, producers, or music lovers.
It doesn't mean to pretend not hear when we advise and criticise what you do in a constructive way. On the contrary, it seems essential to pay attention to it when we want to become an accomplished artist. But while correcting and improving your technicity and creativity, just bear in mind that you have to keep your own style and that you need to develop it, if you want to make the difference, in order to find an audience and make them want to follow you.
Media Links:
Website: http://sonyahofficial.com/
Sonyah: http://www.sonyah.book.fr/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sonia.bousbih