Illa
The beautiful promise

First discovered on The Voice, this young French singer of Ivorian descent is making a name for herself with her promising second EP, Autolyse.

As the name suggests, this EP is about talking about oneself without being shameless, but openly and with candour. By harnessing the beauty of the French language and an urban pop structure to evoke the duality of love, but also “the complexity of constructing oneself entirely in a country that is ultimately only half of who I am”. Illa makes this clear in the track ‘Nuages’ (Clouds): “Some part of me flew off somewhere between Paris and Côte d'Ivoire. For this project, I looked for certain sounds and beats, certain guitar riffs and harmonies. Having grown up reading a lot of books about Africa, I'm aware of the importance of music and lyrics there, and here I've devoted myself to these harmonic mechanisms, to this art of wielding words that fascinates me so much in Ivorian art.” All of this topped off by a singularly memorable tone of voice.