In a British rock scene that has become punk, loud and chaotic again in this post-Brexit decade, she makes a different voice, soft and without anger. With his third album, The actor with my methodwhich he will present on November 28 and 29 at La Bellevilloise in 20e The Parisian quarter, London singer Nilüfer Yanya, 29 years old, keeps all the promises that gave rise to the previous, Painless (2022). It shows that we can position ourselves in the wake of the grunge explosion of the 1990s – the alternation of calm verses and saturated guitar choruses – without screaming.
“This way of singing has become a characteristic of my stylehe recognizes the one whose first name was nevertheless chosen in homage to a vocalist who gave oriental flights, Stambouliote Nilüfer. I never took singing lessons and had to find my own voice. The same way I learned the guitar and how to compose myself. My songwriting was developed to first fit this voice that will never be Mariah Carey’s. »
Born to a Turkish father who was an engraver and a mother who was a designer of Irish and Barbadian descent, Nilüfer Yanya must have first made her way into this artistic hotbed of Chelsea. As for music, I mainly listened to Arabic and classical. “I’ve always liked to sing, but in a low-key way, more in my headconfesses the young woman with blonde curls, who has to give up introversion in order to get a promotion. They were already songs, in a way. My mother had played a little piano, but no one really encouraged her. So she wanted me to start. It was, for me, as abstract as mathematics, a love-hate relationship. I stopped at 18. »
“Influenced by the Pixies and PJ Harvey”
At this age, the teenager focused everything on the guitar, which she started learning six years earlier – blues, folk, funk. His first songs, posted online on the SoundCloud platform, were noticed enough for him to be asked to join a girl bandat the initiative of Louis Tomlinson, from the group One Direction. But telecrochets and candidate shows, very little for the one who pretends not to be “a performer and not really interacting with the audience” : “I refuse to hide behind a mask when I’m on stage. I make myself vulnerable in this way, it’s an upsetting and painful experience. »
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