Dajla – Soul Poetry
We sent her an e-mail and she kindly got back to us. We learnt that both her and Benji (her co-producer, Benji Bouton) are readers of Muziq Magazine and Jazz Magazine…Which is nice to hear. But what’s even nicer is to listen to a good modern soul record, and a very good one at that. Just like Soul Poetry, the first digital LP of a singer whose name shall be heard in the months to come.
To be honest, in a perfect world, Dajla should already be more recognised than some so-called and over-rated soul divas (no names here! That wouldn’t be very classy and would put too much pressure on her shoulders!).
So what else did Dajla say in her e-mail? She said that after several trips to London, Paris, the USA, she had settled in Nantes, 3 years ago and that she’d “met Benji Bouton, a groove genius, drummer, guitarist, bass player and programmer”. As for herself, she has been a “bassplayer for 10 years”, (a soul woman bassplayer…doesn’t it remind you of someone?) and a pianist for “way more than that”, had written songs prior to meeting him, and has only been officially singing for 3 years (it certainly doesn’t sound like it!).
“Benji and I wrote Soul Poetry, then we did a demo in June 2005. Jean-Louis Brossard, the director of international Transmusicales festival, liked it a lot and booked us at the famous festival, which sped things up and got us to find musicians for the show, in the spirit of Raphael Saadiq or D’Angelo. So we came up with a rock-tinted live show, and a more down-tempo hip-hop soul album and we were happy about that combination”.
Ever since the release, one of the tracks, Remember Me, has been in Radio Nova’ s playlist (France’s #1 urban/soul radio station). You must listen to her album : it transpires music intelligence. Right away, one understands that the young lady knows and lives soul music as well as hip hop and jazz. She sings in English, which sounds completely natural (if only the tv singing competition contestants had that talent…!) and the production is really classy and stylish. A perfect case for a voice that never tries to over do it nor imitate anyone. In other words, from now on, Dajla has to be taken into account.
