'My music is a mix – just like me!'

Marie felt that people were always pointing out that she was different, that she was black. Other children would ask her, 'Do you Africans live in trees? … 'No? … How do you live then?'

However, it was Marie’s return to Zaire that would really establish her identity as a mixed-race person. She remembers that once in the company of Africans they told her that they were going to make her try African food. When Marie explained that she was already familiar with African food they replied, 'How can you be when you don’t speak our language, little white girl? Come now!'

On her arrival in Zaire Marie was surprised to hear people singing, 'Here comes the white girl (la blanche)!' She looked down at her skin. La Blanche. From being black, Marie had suddenly turned to being white. But then on reflection she thought, 'Why not? I am 50/50 after all! I am both black and white.'

Marie’s acceptance of her dual racial heritage led her to identify strongly with people of mixed-race and she actively began to seek out other young women of mixed-race as companions. It was this group of friends who would form the basis of the original Zap Mama collective. To zap in French means to change TV channel or to change style, or as was intended here, to change culture. The line-up was an all-woman group of mostly mixed-race individuals that combined a variety of musical influences from Congolese traditional songs, gospel, R & B, Middle Eastern music and mediaeval chants.

The aim was to portray the rich diversity of the oral music traditions of the group members’ combined African and European heritage, with a particular emphasis on the yodelling technique used by the Pygmies.

The group recorded their first, primarily acapella album in 1991. The album, simply entitled Zap Mama, was first released on the Belgian record label Crammed. The music on this album was strikingly original, so much so that when David Byrne of Talking Heads heard the album he was so impressed that he signed the group for his Luaka Bop label. The album was re-released on Luaka Bop in 1993 under the title Adventures in Afropea and has since proved to be Luaka Bop’s best selling album to date. The album was released in more than twenty countries and was Billboard’s number one 'World Music' album of the year in the United States.

Referring to the music on the album, Marie said that she purposely did not want either the European culture or the African culture to predominate because she felt that was how it should be. She said, 'My music is a mix – just like me!'

Continued