Text by Ernesto Assante

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Imany, her stage name, means faith in Swahili, and it is nice to think that Nadia Mladjao chose it because she has faith in the immense and unstoppable power of music. Not exactly so, she tells us, when she chose it she had no idea what it meant in Swahili, rather she was inspired by the character of the American girl who marries the prince of Zamunda in Eddie Murphy's "The Prince Seeks a Wife." But it is beautiful all the same, because the story of the film is that of an unexpected and sudden transformation, from classic fairy tale, and ultimately the discovery of music in Nadia's life, is what turned her into Imany giving reality to the fairy tale. Because for her, a Frenchwoman with parents from the Comoros, music came as an epiphany: music was not the first of the many lives the talented artist from Martigues has lived: she was an athlete, a long-jump champion, for many years she was a model, moving to the United States and living to New York, and only in 2008, just before returning to France, did she start to singing. And she has done well, because by mixing elegance and originality, a warm and rich vocality, a boundless curiosity, and a 'faith' in the communicative power of music, Imany has found her way.

With the help of her sister Fatou, Imany began in 2010 to performing in French clubs, slowly attracting the attention of an ever-growing audience and then a Senegalese producer, Malick N'Diaye, who pushed her not only to to improve as a performer but also, and more importantly, as a songwriter. Imany's songs, helped to highlight her personality right away, with her debut single in 2011,"You will never know," which racked up two platinum records, paving the way for her debut album"Shape of to broken heart," produced from As, which quickly propelled her onto the international scene. She now has three albums behind her, her debut album, the highly successful and acclaimed "The wrong kind of war" in 2016, and her latest, a particularly original and interesting project entitled "Voodoo Cello," recorded with eight cellists who with her challenge themselves with songs of different origins, from pop to dance to soul. A highly gifted performer, Imany is not content to reread the repertoire of the greats, but has the ambition to be able to 'rewrite' them, to bring them inside her world, her language of redrawing their contours without ever betraying their nature or inspiration. If in the previous album the French singer emphasized the power of the song as a tool for personal, social, and political growth, touching on important topics, such as war, precisely, but also the environment, poverty, and racism, with a blend of rock, soul, and jazz that allowed her to speak to an extremely wide audience, with her latest work, released in 2021, she imagined what can be described as a great challenge even for a performer of her caliber: thirteen celebrated songs reinterpreted only from a voice and eight cellos. The result is resounding, fascinating, profound, Imany not only manages once again to to capture the attention with her vocal talents but also brings the listener to 'rediscover' the songs they already know because they are 'reimagined' for a completely different musical structure. There is no rhythm section, no electronics, nothing but a voice and cellos to interpret thirteen songs that she has chosen with special care and attention. The idea was born almost ten years earlier, when Imany first heard the Vitamin String Quartet, but she found the time to realize it in the last few years, in which she became a mother and dedicated to herself and to discovering the infinite possibilities offered by eight cellos together, capable as she explains, of transforming into a wind section or into fiery electric guitars, as if bewitched, as if in a kind of voodoo...And it is not only a celebration of the voice or the possibilities of string instruments, but also of the 'sacred feminine fire,' because, as she herself says, 'there is nothing a woman cannot do.'  

Each of her concerts is a different experience, as Imany expresses her 'faith' in music by constantly changing, leaving no stone unturned, turning each performance into an experience from to share with others, in the name of music, mutual understanding, love and art.