Escape with the singer Yamê, unique voice and musical register beyond borders

Yamê is the story of a boy who explodes meters, borders and musical registers. He grew up between Val d’Oise and Douala, in Cameroon, with a musician father. He published his first pieces 3 years ago and since June 2023 everything has accelerated on the networks, YouTube, radio, and stages in France.
After the publication of Bikea song that garnered millions of listens and views, there was Elowia mini album that mixes jazz, soul, rap and West African music around his singing.
Yamê imposed a voice and a face: after a fall when he was a kid, he was missing 2 front teeth.

When Rebecca Manzoni found him at home, they first passed each other in the hall. He tells him “I see the fiber technician and I arrive straight away”. Her roommate then leads the journalist into a rather bare office – studio: guitar against the wall, metal V of her music victory placed on the radiator, computer and microphone fixed on a table which goes up and down like at the physiotherapist.
“I sat down, I reread some texts from his record, including this sentence which says: “persona non grata, I have my own gratin”. In the next room, I heard a washing machine running.” “Here we go ?“The interview can begin…

The music started with the roommate, “friends who wanted to live together and who were already making music together, without too many projects but with this idea of ​​getting together and doing something“. Confinement was a revelation for Yamê, a moment of freedom in his eyes. A roommate, a house, a garden, and a little more time to live. “I said to myself, what am I doing with my life? What do I do with music?“An important moment where he motivates himself to take the plunge, far from his previous job in data where, in short, he had to work on the data, translate it and resell it, a mood that doesn’t really suit him in the end.

From the recent roommate, let’s go back to childhood and music with the song I dreamed of her again. Huge hit from 1975. A song that his mother sang all the time, he discovered it a few years later, “and I loved it“. We hear him here humming the words and the chorus, a song which also gave him a taste for music with his mother who in his eyes sang more accurately in his memory than on the recording of Il was a times (note for young readers: Once upon a time is the name of the group, not once upon a time and in bed).There’s something emotional about the song that brings something sincere to the way she sang it that made it always stick with me.“
Many other songs have left their mark on him, from France Gall to Gainsbourg, via Fernandel. This culture gives him respect for French interpretation, rhythm and musical technicality of African music. “Rap arrived when I came back to live in France“, upon the death of his mother in Cameroon. His entourage shaped his musical education, one friend listens to MGMT, the Who etc, another listens to rap, and video games! “Battlefield 1942, there are lots of incredible sounds in it, solos… With Guitar Hero I discovered guitar virtuosos, I loved it, I listened to metal, I was sensitive to lots of styles.“

We see in this video of Abemi, a piece from his father, little Yamê who opens the clip on his bike. Lots of memories for him, “it reminds me of a childhood, when we shot the video in the garden”.

The continuation of Yamê’s artistic path, with his musician father, Douala, France, the piano… at the microphone of Rebecca Manzoni.

MUSICAL PROGRAMMING:

• YAME, Quest
• YAME, Bike