“It is thanks to the ancestors that today we can make

Passing through Paris to present his magnificent album Thanks, Christine Salem took the time to tell her story in #MaParole: her childhood in Saint-Denis de la Réunion, her love of maloya and her desire to make it known everywhere.

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Christine Salem has given herself a great mission: to make maloya, this Reunionese blues sang by slaves, known across the planet. This music has not lost its vigor even if it has long been banned in Reunion.

# 1 In the Camélias district in Saint-Denis

The singer grew up in the Camélias district in Saint-Denis de La Réunion. This is where she learned everything. “Tomboy”, football fanatic and music lover, Christine Salem wants to enjoy life, her life. Rebel, undisciplined, her mother sent her at 15 to her godmother in Mulhouse. But after a few months, the future singer demands to return. “I said to my mother: either you take a ticket from me or I kill someone. I suffered racism and rebellious as I am… “

After this stay in France, Christine Salem won her freedom in Reunion. Her mother gave up watching her. Without really realizing it, Christine Salem then made her apprenticeship in music by singing and playing guitar and percussion in her neighborhood. At 8, she wrote her first song. At school, on the other hand, it was incomprehension. She who was born on December 20, the day of Fet Kaf, the feast of the abolition of slavery in Reunion Island, rose up against this teacher who told her without flinching that her ancestors were Gauls. She stood up to him, shouting loud and clear: “My ancestors, they are slaves “.

# 2 In search of ancestors

At the age of 8, Christine Salem discovered maloya in her neighborhood, thanks to the Ziskakan group. This Reunionese blues, she has it in her skin. At the age of 20, she continued her research by participating in “kabaré servis”, these ceremonies in which we come into contact with the ancestors thanks in particular to maloya, prohibited until 1981. For a long time, these ceremonies were banned, considered diabolical by the Catholic Church. “And for many Reunionese, it was a shame to sing maloya “, adds Christine Salem.

The singer went in search of the roots of maloya in Madagascar, the Comoros, Zanzibar. She has had amazing experiences. Christine Salem admits to having a special connection with her ancestors, so much so that they dictate songs to her in languages ​​she does not know.

#3 “A slap for humanity “

Very open to emotions, Christine Salem feels fully anchored on Earth. For her, the coronavirus epidemic is fair “a huge slap for humanity“. In this third episode of #MaParole, Christine Salem remembers her job as a social worker. The consumer society, the law of the strongest are for them at the origin of most of the social problems that Reunion Island is experiencing.

Social problems inspire and distress her. The flagship song of his latest album, Tyenbo, she wrote it after yet another feminicide in Reunion. Christine Salem sings 24 hours a day, composes a little all the time. Constantly inspired, the Réunionese place the links between human beings at the highest point.