"I speak to the" different "and those around them," says Suzane

Singer Suzane. - Liswaya

"Toï Toï", the first album of the singer Suzane will be released this Friday.
Today aged 29, the artist from Avignon slammed the door of the conservatory at 17 and took time before getting back to song.
"I feel especially concerned before being hired," says the artist to "20 Minutes". Suzane writes mainly on social issues (the environmental crisis, sexism, the trauma of November 13, etc.) and draws inspiration from her observation of everyday life.

It is safe to bet that 2020 will be Suzane year. In 2019, it was already playing at (almost) all French festivals. By snapping her confident voice, tinged with an Avignon accent, on unstoppable electronic rhythms, she put the audience in her pocket. Also, Suzane - Océane Colom at the registry office - seems the only surprise to find herself in the running for the next Victoires de la Musique, in the “stage revelation” category. "This nomination is the big icing on the cake, it's a real recognition," she slips.

His first album is released this Friday and should allow him to further expand his audience. It is called Toï Toï , in reference to its lucky formula, a German expression, synonymous with encouragement. For half an hour, seated at a bar in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, the singer talked in broken tones with 20 Minutes about her nightmarish years at the conservatory, her taste for writing or her songs which she calls several covers of "films".

"Behind your wooden bar / Except during off-peak hours / You dream of Olympia / To exist in front of the curious crowd" - extract from "Suzane"

When you wrote "Suzane" several years ago, when you were a waitress, did you imagine getting there today?

Lately I've been telling myself that this song has premonitory lyrics. At the time I wrote it, I had just passed the mop, as every morning, in the restaurant where I worked. I just dreamed of it. It was a fantasy that was very far from reality. I wanted to write songs, to go on stage. The time to anchor all this in reality, it took time and I did not even think that it could happen.

In the same song, you sing "you didn't play the most beautiful voice", a reference to "The Voice". Have you considered participating in tele-hooks?

Of course. To get started in this business, it is a path that one can take. They put a lot of pressure on me. When I said that I wanted to be a singer, we did not understand why I was not going to skim all the castings in Paris. I haven't done much. The only ones I passed were by pressure, to let me go. I felt that this was not the place where I could express myself by really being myself. I have friends who have made these kinds of shows and who today work and are doing very well. Everyone has their way and must choose their door. I knew that mine was not this one, because what I like to do is write songs, imagine the visual, the clip, create every last bit of every detail of this project.

When did you go back to your taste for music?

I met music through dance. My mother took me a bit by chance - there was no nanny that day - in a classical dance class with my big sister, on a Wednesday afternoon. I found myself seeing girls dancing, I found it fascinating. The teacher let me in, even though I was too young, and I never came out. Two years later, at the age of 7, I registered at the Avignon Conservatory. There followed ten years of dance-studies. My first instrument is the body. At around 13, I started to sing by chance in the locker room between two lessons. At the start, it was just to pick up a little bit but I quickly started to go looking for French songs, with Piaf, Brel, Barbara, Balavoine, Renaud… I realized that I liked to express myself with the voice. Today, I feel like all the arts I like to practice come together and I find it great to be able to take this on stage.

You have however slammed the door of the conservatory. Why ?

The routine weighed heavily on me and I had forgotten the notion of pleasure. Why go to the conservatory, at the same bar, every day? At that time, I lost a friend in a dance class, it was a little violent [to a journalist from L'Obs , she explained that one of her comrades died from a break in aneurysm in full course]. I quit overnight. It was the beginning of a somewhat vague period since I always thought that I would be a dancer and there, suddenly, I realized that the dance disgusted me and that I was not on the right path . Then it was a wandering period, I would say. I think I did a little burnout at the time, tackling everything overnight. Wanting to always be the best everywhere, at school, at dancing and staying the course, it blew me away. I started doing food jobs. I was told that having an artistic job was based only on fantasy, that I was going to have a hard time, that it could be violent to have too big dreams. My loved ones were worried. I listened to them. Over time, they managed to make me lose this confidence and my desire to do this job. It has not been such a useless period since I draw a lot from it today.

How did you find the taste for music and dance?

One day I decided to go to Paris, to write my songs, to stop throwing away everything I wrote. I regained self-confidence. Find some freedom after the conservatory, go dancing in clubs, no longer have the classical dance teacher who tells me that my foot is not stretched enough, that I do not smile enough, that my hair is not enough learned… it allowed me to unlock a lot of things in my head. I started listening to Daft Punk, Vitalic, Justice, Mr Oizo, Miss Kittin… it was music that spoke to me right away, I got a real slap. In a club, I wanted to move, the conservatory had paralyzed me and suddenly, this music started to work on me. I was fed up with adults deciding for me. When you are a teenager, casually, you are really influenced by what adults say and think and it is difficult to listen to your instinct.

How do you write? What is the process?

First, my eye has to catch on a theme, on a character, on a discussion that I am going to hear or on something that, as a woman or as a citizen, will turn me upside down. I rarely say to myself, "Well, well today, you're writing a song. On the other hand if, in my week, I experienced something ... For example, I wrote SLT while I was a waitress. The #MeToo movement was growing, I heard a lot of debate around me, pretty violent things and I could not participate in these discussions, so my only way to express myself was to write a song. I took the time to write it down, put my feelings into it, go and talk to my friends, my mother, my grandmother ...

"Be careful / Walk on the sidewalk next door /" You're a beanbag "/ It's become common / to hear it three times a day" - extract from "SLT"

I try that there is, in my songs, my experience and my thoughts, to start from an anecdote and to make so that people can recognize themselves in it. I write when I have the film in mind. I like to compare words to food. You can feel when a sentence is fluid, that it is good in the mouth. When we recite something, there is then a natural melody that emerges.

In your songs, you talk about street harassment, the environmental crisis, homophobia ...

Things that represent society, yes.

In France, artists sometimes have trouble with the term "engaged". What is your relationship to engagement?

People think that someone hired is someone who is not happy, who has a lot to claim. Me, I feel especially concerned before being engaged. When I write my songs, I am in real life. I tell myself that we live in an era where we are a little obliged to be concerned, because everything is going fast, too fast and there are a lot of things over which we lose control. There, I recently released Where is the after-sales service? and I get a lot of feedback from young people who tell me that they feel like they were born at the wrong time, that the world is going up in smoke, that they have no future. Of course, it touches me.

"We broke the planet / Where is the after-sales service? / We broke the planet / And that everyone knew" - extract from "Where is the after-sales service?" "

Paradoxically, your melodies are dynamic, make you want to dance…

I like to talk about things that give the impression of being a little paralyzing but that we tell ourselves that it is possible to let go. I realize that, in concert, I can tell the life of Dissatisfied , which is in the dark, but that with the electronic sounds, there is something which invites to dance. I tell myself that we are never stuck in situations, that there is always a way out. This is what I try to convey through this music, which it contrasts sharply with sometimes frontal lyrics.

"I don't want a guy like you / I don't want a swatter under my roof / Get out, go get treatment / Especially don't come back" - extract from "Little guy"

The words of "Little Guy" are indeed very frontal. Why did you choose to tell a coming out from a boy's point of view?

I experienced this film a little bit personally but in a much less violent way because I was lucky to be in an open-minded family. On the other hand, friends of mine were not so lucky. I talked about it a lot with them. To feel rejection is very hard for anyone, but when this rejection comes from family or people who are part of our universe, it can be even more violent and destructive. I wanted anyone who listens to this song to feel this rejection, even without being concerned. I wish it could change the minds of parents, that they realize that with the words they say to their children, they crush them. It's hard afterwards to get up from this kind of thing. I wanted the little guy who listens to this song to feel less alone.

“Anouchka” also makes it possible to approach homosexuality, but in a softer, happier way…

Anouchka is a song that means a lot to me. It took me a long time to write it. Anouchka is someone I know. I didn't want to spoil this story. I receive a lot of messages from people who recognize themselves in her and tell me that it was easier for them to take responsibility. In my youth, there were no books, movies or series, except The L Word , in which I identified. It was always very heteronormous. Female homosexuality exists. I try to explain that we do not choose our sexual orientation, that we can be very feminine while being homosexual, or not, to ensure that there are fewer clichés around that.

"This morning at the bus stop / to believe that I have something more / she is looking at me / Anouchka" - extract from "Anouchka"

Just that, it’s engaged, in a way…

I don't realize it. I also reveal myself in song, I have no problem talking about myself and I think it's not the most important. What is, is that people recognize themselves in these songs, that we do not pretend that it does not exist. I like to show the difference and that it speaks to everyone. I speak to the "different" and those around them too, to everyone.

Speaking of universality, you have performed in Asia. How did it happen?

Yes, it's a little crazy. I did a concert in Tokyo (Japan) as part of a festival. With the Alliance française, who called me to represent French culture and language, I was able to go to Mongolia, take a tour of China. I went to Poland, to Germany… Thanks to the music, I traveled a lot, I did not expect it. I didn't think when I wrote my little songs in my living room or behind my counter that they would take me to the depths of Asia. It's completely crazy. The cool thing is that I sing in French but that the language is not a barrier. On stage, I have a gesture that supports my words and I think people could understand what I was talking about.

"Let me introduce you to my lazy girlfriend / I have known her since high school / They say that she is a problem girl / She doesn't give a damn about her days" - extract from "La lazy"

And with all that, do you really think you are lazy?

( She laughs ) I have always been affixed this label at the conservatory where you had to be always very productive, constantly having gout on your forehead. As a teenager, when I was dropping out, people tended to tell me that I was not working enough, that I was resting on my laurels, that I was lazy. I was told this so much, when it was not true - it is especially that I was asked too much. Laziness is a way of rebelling, of saying no.

Do you fear that by becoming more and more general public you will be led to make concessions to please the greatest number?

So far, I've been seen on stages, on TV sets. I discover all that and people discover me too. I have the impression that the meeting takes place without my needing to modulate myself or to show myself as someone I am not in order to adapt to the greatest number. I would take much less pleasure in trying to please everyone.

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