Smis, Ahamada
Air
With this new album, Ahamada Smis takes a step forward : the slammer who used to sing his choruses, embraces here the melodies from beginning to end, he mixes his heart and soul to the breath that comes out of his lungs and inhabits his voice. Already in his previous record AfroSoul (2018), sparkled the sounds and music of the Comoros in the samples around which Ahamada Smis had written his songs. With this new album the composer embarks on a new exercise : writing his songs from the dance rhythms of his archipelago and neighboring islands. The rhymes of the hip hop tradition are followed by the sensitive conciseness of meticulously chosen verses, delicate assonances and resonances that marry the notes of his melodies and draw his soothing messages or his uncompromising observations. Air testifies to the irresistible evolution of Ahamada Smis. AIR : On La Route, to tell his story of music and love, he invokes the dance of the spirits of the "ngoma za madjini" rhythm. For Air libre, where he seeks to ward off fear, masks and confinement due to the pandemic, he chooses the Malagasy trance rhythm "mgodro". The Comorian male dance "chigoma" helps him to depict the difficult life of a nomadic child on Mwana. The "biduki", the music of the women of Zanzibar, gives rhythm to the contradictory feelings of hearts torn between two shores expressed in Les yoyos. He then borrows from débé, the traditional dance of the women of the Comoros, to pay homage to his partner and his children on Mon Oxygène. The "djalico", a mixed dance essential to the Comorian tradition of the Grand Mariage, is used in Nos héros to praise the martyred fathers of independence. The Reunionese "maloya" is used to describe police violence in La Bêtise. In Mon Capitaine, helped by the "biyaya" rhythm of the Comorian youth dance parties, Ahamada Smis evokes the dramas and dangers that threaten migrants, but also the humanism of those who help them. To evoke the dictatorship and the necessary revolt that must fight it, he uses on Sambé, the rhythm of the same name, the fourth stage of "djalico". On the feminine rhythm of "lélémama", which also resounds during the Great Wedding, Dernière Danse, denounces the sad state of the earth ravaged by the madness of men. The last tune borrows from the twarab of Zanzibar, Ahamada sings about his home port Marseille and underlines the great cultural diversity that the city harbors, and gives other microphones to the moving Occitan singer Sam Karpienia and the promising Moroccan Anass Zine on Un Sentiment Fort. On Air, the deep-rooted dances, chiseled melodies and refined lyrics, sung by Ahamada Smis accompanying herself on the gaboussi lute or the dzenzé harp, are transcended by a team of virtuoso and sensitive friends. Senegalese-born Hervé Samb's traveling guitars are propelled by the beautifully supple and solid rhythms of Comorian percussionist Mfougoulie Ibrahim on the ngoma drum, American bassist Reggie Washington, and drummer Ulrich Edorh, who is also responsible for the crystal clear mix.Conscious, joyful, fresh, poetic, dancing and renewed Air by Ahamada Smis is vital.