After a first album, Treacherymixing influences of French song, rap and pop, the artist from Longueuil in Quebec will defend France during the famous musical tele-hook in May 2023.
La Zarra has just been appointed to represent France at Eurovision 2023. Without going through a preselection contest like in recent years, this Quebec singer, revealed in 2021 by her hit, You will go away will therefore fly to Liverpool to participate in the musical telecrochet final on May 13th.
For the moment, the title of the piece that the artist will perform on stage in order to defend France has not yet been revealed. During a press conference organized by France Télévision to announce this selection, La Zarra confided that she was “honored to wear the colors of France”.
“It’s a lot of emotions. Defending France in a contest as legendary as Eurovision is a little girl’s dream,” she says.
Between pop, French song and rap
Inspired by great female artists such as Edith Piaf, Céline Dion, Barbara or Dalida, La Zarra – whose real name Fatima-Zahra Hafdi – was not intended for song. But a meeting will change his life. She meets Benny Adam, Montreal hip-hop producer of Moroccan origin, as she explained to the Canadian media The Press.
“In a drunken evening, we started to play. He was tapping on a piano and he heard my voice. He said to me: ‘See you in the studio. Tomorrow.’
Benny Adam is producing white spring, in 2016, a piece in collaboration with rapper Niro. Launched into the deep end of music with this first title, the singer, originally from Longueuil, north of Montreal, then tries her hand at covers on her YouTube channel, including a mashup between the title With ammonia of the PNL group, and My God by Edith Piaf. She also publishes an interpretation of the track Draw a line of Marseille rapper SCH.
But it’s his original song, you will go awaytaken from his first album Treachery released in 2021, which allows him to make a name for himself in the music world and to offer himself a collaboration with Slimane on The lovers of the hill.
“A heartfelt encounter”
Consecration after this first success, La Zarra will represent France at the Eurovision Song Contest on May 13 in Liverpool. A telecrochet to which the singer, very discreet about her career and her personal life, is particularly attached:
“When I was little, my mother often sang to me ‘The bird and the child’ (the title of Marie Myriam with which France won the competition for the last time, in 1977, editor’s note)”, she confided during of the France Télévisions press conference.
Alexandra Redde-Amiel, director of entertainment and games at France Télévisions and head of the French delegation to Eurovision, said during this press conference that she had a real “coup de coeur” for the singer, so much so that the group preferred to dispense with the usual pre-selection competition.
“A meeting changed the turn of things. This meeting put the usual selection on hold for this year. It was a favorite meeting, it was obvious”, explains Alexandra Redde-Amiel.
“I agree to win”
But this is not the first time that La Zarra has been asked to participate in Eurovision. As Alexandra Redde-Amiel says, the French delegation has been trying to canvass the singer for “more than two years”.
“In recent years, I was not ready, I was writing my first album and I did not see myself defending France, this great country. Today, I have more confidence in myself and I am surrounded by a team motivated,” La Zarra told AFP.
The one who is already working in parallel on her second album does not hide her ambitions as to the outcome of the Eurovision Song Contest: “When I accepted, I said ‘I accept to win'” , she says.
If the song she will defend on the Liverpool stage is still unknown, the Quebec artist slipped some clues during the France Télévisions press conference: “We will find my signature which is to mix genres. a song about owning your destiny and relying on yourself.”
