An almost childish blondness and, in counterpoint, eyes of a deep topaz yellow and an intensity that is difficult to escape.
Those who have seen her on stage, in the center of a setting reduced to the strict minimum, know her capacity to lay bare and her gaze, as if inhabited by an inner flame which welds her to the public.
Unquestionably, Zaho de Sagazan, daughter of the visual artist Olivier de Sagazan and Gaëlle de Sagazan, teacher in love with words, youngest of five young women dedicated to creation, represents the great hope of French song, to which she injects new blood.
She is crowned with five nominations for the Victoires de la Musique, the ceremony of which will be held on February 9: album of the year, song of the year, female revelation, stage revelation, audiovisual creation…
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Upon learning it, the 23-year-old singer-songwriter sat down at her piano to regain her senses.
Since the age of 13, Zaho has locked himself in his room to tell, through music, his exacerbated vision of the world.
Her need for creation resonates as evidence within a family of artists, “governed by a draconian level of intellectual demands”, confides the Nazairian singer established in Nantes.
But, despite his joyful assonant first name, Zaho was, at the time, prey to a deep melancholy, without knowing the reason.
The composition, the singing, the lyrics will help him channel his waves of emotions.
Also read: Zaho de Sagazan: “In my family, the rules were: “Eat properly, go to bed early but above all, express yourself””
“From her earliest childhood, she did not know how to speak other than by shouting softly,” she intones on
La Symphonie des éclairs
, the title song of her first album, released last March.
Sacred gold record, it brings together pieces that rhyme dancefloor rhythms and poetic texts.
At a time when his generation likes “simple speaking”, Zaho de Sagazan quotes Les
Fleurs du mal
, by Baudelaire, and borrows the hypnotic phrasing of Marguerite Duras, feeding it with an urban flow that would make the rap world pale .
An incredible power emerges from her frail figure when she sings her pieces, mixing electro with the heartbreaking lyricism of Brel or Barbara.
Her fierce freedom also seduced Nicolas Ghesquière, artistic director of the Louis Vuitton house, who chose her to accompany the fashion show for the spring-summer 2024 collection with a song that tells of a journey “above the clouds. »
A bountiful piece, like this singer who continues her dizzying flight, is already preparing her second album and is beginning a tour which will visit the Zénith in Paris (November 17).
Madame Figaro.
– You burst onto the French scene making a big splash with your album
La Symphonie des éclairs
, a musical portrait that is as personal as it is universal.
What feelings do you have regarding this first creation?
Zaho de Sagazan.
– I have a lot of love for this record.
It accompanied me for seven years, from when I was 15, when I started writing it, until I was 22.
It is a symphony of thirteen flashes, thirteen strong and sometimes brutal emotions that have guided my life.
It depicts the little girl that I was, a Zaho as round as a marble, who hated her oversensitivity, her singularity, and whom I look at today with great tenderness.
When writing the songs, I had tutelary figures behind me as inspiring muses: Brel and Barbara, Stromae and Kraftwerk, in music, Hayao Miyazaki and Xavier Dolan in cinema.
This record is an admission by turns tender, abrupt, funny and serious, and I find it extraordinary that such a sincere and imperfect work, made from the heart, is received with so much enthusiasm.
This seems… dizzying to me.
Do you remember the very first song you wrote in your life?
I was 13 years old.
I wasn't doing well at that time.
I had stopped dancing, which I had been practicing assiduously for seven years, suddenly no longer finding any interest in it.
I had gained a lot of weight and I cried very often.
I was self-conscious about my body, about my voice, which was a little strange, hoarse and unfeminine, which didn't appeal to boys.
Everything changed one fall afternoon when I decided to sit at my sister's upright piano and close the door behind me.
I had never played, but I started playing chords by watching tutorials on the Internet.
The voice left immediately;
I sang like I had been doing it my whole life.
It was a revelation, love at first sight.
What atmosphere reigned in the house where you grew up with four sisters and parents devoted to art?
It was crazy.
I grew up in an extremely original and expressive, loving and close-knit family.
There was always loud music, my father's artwork scattered everywhere, and vibrant colors on the walls.
Silence was rare there, because we always had guests.
We loved to dance on any occasion and my parents launched great debates on art, culture and existence at all hours of the day and night.
I have always been surrounded, that's why I like being in the middle of the crowd, the public.
My older sisters often took care of me and my twin sister.
My parents were very cool, but they watched over us by repeating, like a mantra, a key word: “demand”.
When I discovered the piano and composed my first songs, they didn't give me sugary compliments.
They passed silently, gave me a kiss on the back of my neck and whispered in my ear: “Go further.”
I find it extraordinary that my record, so sincere and imperfect, and made with the heart, is received with so much enthusiasm.
Zaho de Sagazan
Your father, the sculptor and visual artist Olivier de Sagazan, works on the “inner voice”. What impact did his artistic journey have on you?
For my father, life is not ordinary, it is “extraordinary”.
We tend to describe his work as strange, morbid, whereas I have always had in front of me an artist passionate about life, biology, the stars, the infinitely large and the infinitely small.
My father forced us to love originality.
He diverted us from conformist tendencies and made irony about clothing fashions.
He tirelessly questioned us so that we revealed ourselves, assuming our own tastes.
As an artist, he has always been free, constantly creating in his studio.
He was lucky to have a wife who believed in him, because until he was 50, he earned very little money.
But we didn't care.
We were not interested in artifice.
What was beautiful was being yourself, unique, funny, in love.
It was thanks to him that I saw a path in song, that I began to love my identity and my outlook.
His example allowed me to be whole on stage, while developing my own aesthetic.
My work is very theatrical, the very way I present myself is inspired by Beckett-style minimalism: bare face, a line of crimson lipstick, a lock of blonde.
Nothing more.
“I'm not interested in fame, I don't want to be adored” Arno Lam
And what did your mother give you in terms of writing?
She had a huge impact on my life.
When I was young, I had a lot of difficulty expressing my thoughts.
I couldn't find the words, which frustrated me.
I made a drama out of it.
My mother, a woman of letters, taught me to think, to reflect, to write.
Among the Sagazans, we always have an opinion, so she asked me questions, corrected me and taught me the art of rhetoric.
Thanks to her, I started reading philosophers, like Montaigne.
These readings soothe my mind, inspire it, structure it.
It is to my mother that I also owe my first musical shocks and my discovery of French lyrics.
The first time I saw the images of Brel singing
Ces gens-là
, I was speechless, then I watched them a hundred times in a row.
During your concerts, as the last song, you almost always choose to sing
Danser
…
I celebrate the mind as much as the body, because listening to it has saved me many times.
My big sister Leïla Ka is a dancer-choreographer with whom I often collaborate.
Without her, I would not have been able to go on stage during my first concert at the Olympia, last November 4.
I was horribly stressed, exhausted by the crazy pace of the previous dates.
However, it was a moment that I had been waiting for for years.
For rehearsals, I was paralyzed.
Impossible to move.
My voice was trembling.
My musicians panicked.
I broke down in tears.
Without saying a word, Leïla grabbed my shoulders, then my pelvis, and began to wave them.
While she was telling the musicians “we're going to
dance
”, she started to circle around me, guiding me into a body-to-body fight.
After ten minutes, I capsized... liberated.
A magnificent moment.
The one where we realize that in a few moments the psyche can pass from one state to another, diametrically opposed, guided by the body which plays with the sometimes treacherous mind.
Montaigne talks about it in his
Essays
: “But we will never say enough insults to the disorder of our mind.”
At 13 I was self-conscious about my slightly strange, hoarse and non-feminine voice, which didn't appeal to boys.
Zaho de Sagazan
Doesn’t your meteoric rise scare you? Stromae was forced to cancel his concerts due to physical exhaustion...
I think about it, yes, and at one point this year I was very afraid of all that.
If my dream has come true, there is a downside to take on: pressure, fame and expectations.
What the music industry asks of an artist is sometimes unreasonable.
It's not so much releasing a record, it's the frenzy afterward: the clips, the promotion, the concerts, the tours, the photo shoots... then it starts again.
Quickly !
Another album!
Endlessly !
With momentum!
Hop, even more!
The worst thing is that we ourselves enter this spiral, by setting ourselves crazy challenges, as if under the influence of a drug.
I've already had a bit of a taste of all this.
But I didn't choose this profession for the glory.
I'm not interested in fame, I don't want to be adored.
I don't want to be rich either, money is a vice in my eyes.
What drives me?
Make art.
It's a crazy chance to feel passion, to experience moments of deep solitude while writing.
I am aware that the road I have embarked on is full of responsibilities, that I will not have a normal life.
But I accept all this.
No worries, so...
Yes. There is only one thing that scares me.
I haven't known love yet.
I can't wait to discover it, and I regret not having been able to taste this happiness before embarking on my artistic career.
I'm afraid that the people I'm attracted to – simple and humble – won't be seduced by a girl who goes on stage every night.
This year, I have one hundred and fifteen concert dates planned and I can no longer change my schedule.
On the other hand, I can change my vision of things.
Being a singer-songwriter is an athletic job, and I am convinced that being happy requires a lot of discipline.
I do things that make me feel good, like spending time with my family.
See my friends.
Turn off Instagram.
Read.
Bathe in the cold ocean water.
Take naps, as Matthieu Chedid advised me.
You sang during Nicolas Ghesquière's last fashion show, for Louis Vuitton. Were you moved?
What touches me is the work, the work.
That of Nicolas Ghesquière fascinates me.
Before discovering his creations, I had never been interested in fashion, probably because I didn't allow myself to be, considering this superficial world.
When I met Nicolas last April, I fell under his spell.
He is a huge music lover, an inhabited artist.
We talked about music for hours and he showed me his creations which bewitched me, just as, as a child, I had fallen in love with the extravagance of David Bowie's costumes.
It’s to my mother that I owe my first musical shocks
Zaho de Sagazan
How does he inspire you?
In his audacity.
I like his futuristic and retro lines, the way he plays with materials, volumes and superpositions.
I like her play on contrasts - a lace skirt with a leather jacket.
His creations bring movement, a singular look.
I have always dressed in jeans and fleece, and thanks to them I wear inventive dresses, I have fun and I feel beautiful, without being afraid of no longer being myself.
What advice would you give to artists of your generation?
That we must not rush, as social networks urge us to do.
For an artist to become deeply himself, it takes time.
If I hadn't spent ten years in my room searching, if I had been spotted at 15 on a show like
The Voice
, I wouldn't have been able to discover myself.
I would have been a trained singer.
It's absurd to want to plan a career before having taken the time to create.
Inspiration is gained through doubts, emptiness and questions.
I would also tell them to create a label to stay independent, like I did (Disparate).
And finally, to take risks.
Someone said to me recently: “When you sing on stage, it seems like you have nothing left to lose.”
I prefer to think the opposite: I have everything to gain.
The Symphony of Lightning,
Disparate/Virgin.