“I started so high that I had to come back down, and I experienced monumental lows,” says Vitaa in a documentary broadcast this Friday evening on TMC. In My Name is Charlotte, produced by Indifference Prod, a label and production company that she co-founded in 2016, the artist looks back on her 20 years in music.
Alongside those close to her – including her husband Hicham, her friends Slimane, Amel Bent and even Carla Bruni – she reveals her daily life as a singer and mother, her doubts and her complexes, but also the significant events of her career.
From Nocturnal Confessions with Diam’s to VersuS with Slimane, the singer has multiplied successes, awards, diamond and platinum records. It has also experienced some failures since its beginnings in the 2000s, but has managed to recover each time. “Masterclass” and intimate texts, decisive encounters… The secrets of Vitaa’s longevity in the music industry and the hearts of the public.
Powered by a “masterclass”
“Mel, sit down, I have to talk to you…” No need to write much more to recognize this legendary duo with Diam’s. Before that, Vitaa wrote and composed her own songs, but she is best known – and reduced – to her feats with rappers.
“At the time, my fight was to establish myself as a songwriter,” she explained to 20 Minutes last year. Before signing my first record label contract, I had the feeling of being completely misunderstood, of being locked in a bimbo box that was not mine at all. […] My friend Diam’s had to take matters into her own hands and agree to be artistic director of a label to sign me. »
It’s a friendly and artistic love at first sight. Together, they give birth to what Demdem, Gims’ partner, describes in the documentary as “a masterclass”: Nocturnal confessionsa title without choruses, lasting 6 minutes. A phenomenal hit that plays repeatedly on the radio. “I think what makes this song successful is the girl boss, girl power side,” analyzes Vitaa in Je m’appelle Charlotte.
Unifying and parodied by Pascal Obispo and Michaël Youn, the hit has also managed the feat of going through the years without aging. “We must write the song that speaks to millions of people and that is still sung fifteen to twenty years later,” applauds Mr. Pokora in the documentary. “Even little ones who weren’t born when Confessions Nocturnes came out, they will sing it to you from A to Z,” emphasizes Slimane. For Vitaa, it’s a real springboard.
“Magical” encounters
A few months later, the artist presented A fleur de toi, his first album and first major solo success. The eponymous song (certified diamond disc) and the title My sister will become great classics of the singer. Then came the 2010s, the streaming revolution and a lack of interest from the music industry and radio stations in R’n’B and its artists. Vitaa finds itself at the bottom of the wave.
“I was a somewhat complicated artist to classify,” she explained to us in 2023. “I was between French song and urban music, I had done a lot of duets with rappers and I was put in this box, at wrong. Then there was the label of the depressed singer who cries… It was heavy. »
But she made a new meeting that was significant for her career: Hicham Bendaoud, who became her husband and her manager/producer, then Saïd Boussif, with whom she confused the Indifference Prod label. “I then decided to mix genres, shake up the codes,” explains Vitaa in the documentary on TMC.
She appears alongside Stromae, Jul and Claudio Capéo. In 2017, his new solo album J4M brought him back to success and went double platinum. Vitaa is at its highest again.
Then Slimane makes his entrance. The young singer catches the eye of the artist – and the public – with his very personal cover of A fleur de toi on the set of “The Voice”, on TF1. They released their joint project VersuS, a tidal wave. With 416,940 sales, it is the best-selling album in 2020, all categories combined. In addition to a long tour (disrupted by Covid), there were numerous certifications and awards, including a Victoire de la Musique for the hit It’s going to come.
“For me, music has always been about sharing and I believe that I had the chance to make magical encounters at key moments in my career,” says Vitaa.
“You sing lyrics that make us cry”
The singer’s success is also hidden at the heart of her very intimate songs, in which her audience recognizes and identifies. “You have a voice that, for so many years, has given us chills. You sing texts that make us cry but which, at the same time, make us feel close to you”, writes an Internet user in particular ona post relayed by a fan account of the singer.
Particularly sentimental titles which have sometimes earned him the label “crying artist”. “I was locked in a box, and I suffered from it at the beginning. […] But I am very proud of these songs which were my stories. I have never hidden behind a character or an image. It was my life, I told my women’s stories,” she assured us during the release of Sorore, with Camélia Jordana and Amel Bent.
A year after the release of her album Charlotte, her real first name, Vitaa bares herself again with her documentary on TMC. One very last time? After 20 years of career, the singer suggests the end of her career, at least of her solo albums… Until the next big success and a new rebirth?
