We first interviewed Reunion Island chanteuse Maya Kamaty back in 2019 when she was in Montreal to perform at Festival International Nuits d’Afrique. We loved her vision of re-imagining the traditional maloya music for the 21st century. We would suggest revisiting that interview to get a full picture of her and her music as a companion to this update we did with her at this year’s festival.
Kamaty is the daughter of legendary maloya musician Gilbert Pounia, leader of the band Ziskakan. Maloya was the music of the slaves who were brought to the island by French colonialists. They would gather and dance to the traditional, rhythmic blues sound in secret locations, as it was banned by the slave owners and the church. Then in the 1970s, the French authorities legally banned it, as it was closely associated with activists groups seeking greater autonomy for the island. It wasn’t until 1981, when French president Francois Mitterand not only legalized, but funded, promotion of maloya, that it could be performed again in public. The island remains a French department, along with the even smaller African island of Mayotte, the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, and the South American territory of French Guiana.
For Kamaty’s latest album, her third, Sovaz, she writes that the term “is a Creole expression from Reunion that evokes a raw, unpolished, sometimes ill-mannered attitude, borrowing the codes of bad boys and girls who don’t always say yes.”
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We were able to grab her for a short interview after she did a presentation on the history and use of the kayamb during the festival. The kayamb is a flat rattle shaker made of sugar cane reeds and filled with seeds. The instrument is most associated with music from East African nations and islands. The following has been edited for clarity and length.
Ron Deutsch: You haven’t been in North America for some years now. We’ve missed you.
Maya Kamaty: Yes. Thank you. It’s because I haven’t come back since the COVID, but now I want to reconnect with this area, you know, the people here. Because I love it here and also because my style, my musicn has evolved and changed a lot. So I’m curious to see how people can take it here and how much people are still curious to discover new things that they don’t know. So that’s the reason I’m doing this showcase and tour here, to reconnect.
You didn’t have a band with you last night. You just performed solo and that’s new.
Yes, I made this solo set where I sing my song with a backing track. Because my music has evolved, I decided to also perform like this. And also because since the pandemic the economy of this industry is a mess. So we musicians have to adapt our language and our style every time. So I have my band with a drummer and a guitarist, but I also have this solo performance where I use my laptop, but my kayamb is here and I sing my songs.
Last time we talked back in 2019 you had just released your second album Pandiyé, which was this major departure from traditional maloya, getting into more of an electronic sound. And now you have released your third album, Sovaz, which has taken you into yet another direction. So I’d like you to talk about this new sound. But also, I’m interested in whether, you see yourself as someone who is still searching for “your sound,” or whether you are the type of artist who thinks: “That was fun. Now I want to try this, something else.” That your style is to do something different every time.
That’s exactly what I’m saying. From the beginning when I started music, I wanted to do research. I’m curious about everything. For me, it’s normal. I don’t listen to the same music that I was listening to 10 or 15 years ago. So it’s a normal thing for me to improve and to look for other kinds of sounds and ways of mixing with maloya. So I think it will always be different, because it’s about how I feel at this moment.
So would you say that for you, maloya is less a style, a genre, but almost more of an emotional state you bring to the music?
Kind of, yes. Because I always bring my kayamb with me. It’s always there. And the roulér, the big drum, is also always in my music, even if I play it on a laptop. It’s still there. My feeling is that maloya can go everywhere. I want people to listen to it, and I want to bring it to more people. And what is fun for me, is to always have maloya there in the mix.
I think also that people have a lot of clichés and sometimes expect something from you. When I say I come from Reunion Island, sometimes people think, in France especially, that I will come wearing a pretty flower dress and all those traditional things. But I’m a person of today and I like mixing the music. This is my thing. I mean, Creole and maloya, it’s my personality. This is the unique thing that I can share with people. Why would people listen to my music if I do the same as someone else? Or if they hear the same kind of song all the time? That’s no fun.
I also changed my workflow for this album. Before, I was performing and creating with a band. On this new album, Sovaz, I learned to produce with just one person in the studio and to trust this person. He is a composer/producer called Sskyron, and he is from the east side of the Island. I had always felt the need before to leave Reunion Island to compose, to go somewhere else. But now this guy made me trust in my own workflow. He pushed me to do some things, to sing songs that I have never thought I could do.
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In what way?
It’s the first time that I’ve gone into the studio with nothing, almost nothing. Sometimes just a word, sometimes just a small melody. And we built everything together in the studio. So that’s really spontaneous. And it was one day in the studio to make one song. OIt’s really interesting for me to work like this because it’s so urgent. Sometimes I feel that I put in too much intellectual thought, you know, in the lyrics, in the composition. This way, I have to be simple, to say things straightforward.
And so it was forcing you to just trust and let yourself create and that what’s going to come out is good because you know you can do this. But if you had the time to think too much, then the doubts come.
Yeah, and sometimes after a day in the studio, I was like: “Okay, I used this word, but I will change it when I will do the final vocals.” But at the end of this recording, I didn’t change anything. What I first wrote, I wrote for a purpose.
And it was a relief for me after the pandemic to write this album because I just let go. I just let it happen. I wanted to do something new, for me, so I trusted me and this guy. He gave me a lot of trust and a lot of space.
I see you have to go. It was nice to catch up and we look forward to your next exploration, as always.
Yes, for me too.
