Who Is Aya Nakamura? Everything About The Singer in Gold at the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Olympics.
Meet Aya Nakamura,The French Superstar Who Overcame Racism to Take Part in the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris
A well-known French singer stole the show on July 26 at the 2024 Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony, shining brilliantly in gold. Given that Aya Nakamura is the most streamed French artist globally, her performance was an easy option.
Her classics, “Pookie” and “Djadja,” were performed live, accompanied by the Order of the Republican Guard band.
French President Emmanuel Macron said of the pop artist to The Guardian, “She speaks to a good number of our fellow citizens.
Before the Opening Ceremony, details of her performance were kept under wraps; for months, the artistic director of the ceremony refused to say who would be singing at the event.
From whence is Aya Nakamura?
CNN reports that the 28-year-old was reared in the suburbs of Paris but was born Aya Danioko in the former French territory of Mali. In 2021, she obtained naturalization.
According to The New York Times, she got her stage name from a character on NBC’s Heroes.
According to The New York Times, Nakamura is the mother of two children and the eldest of five siblings.
What kind of music does Aya Nakamura sing?
Pop music is written and sung by Nakamura.
According to CNN, she regularly combines French, Arabic, English, and West African slang from languages like Bambara, a language spoken in Mali, with verlan, a French slang that originated in the outskirts of Paris.
“[My music] ultimately speaks to everyone,” the artist stated, as reported by The New York Times. “You sing, but you don’t understand.”
Her blood is in singing, she revealed to Dazed Digital.
If my mother hadn’t been a griot, I never would have taken this route and discovered this particular voice, the woman claimed. Her singing plays a significant role in my personal narrative. In Africa, griots are transmitters of the oral tradition. She also paid for my very first class at the studio. For me, that was a true advantage.
Which are some of the most well-known songs by Aya Nakamura?
According to The New York Times, Nakamura is a multi-platinum selling pop artist who has 25 top ten hits in France and more than 20 million social media followers. According to The Guardian, she created history last year when she sold out three performances in Paris in less than 15 minutes.
The slang term poucave, which means “traitor” or “rat” in Romani, is used in one of her most well-known songs, “Pookie.”
However, Nakamura is most recognized for the song “Djadja,” which debuted in 2018 and peaked at number one in France. According to The New York Times, the song has been streamed over a billion times.
Her song, “I’m not your catin,” is an anthem for female empowerment that uses the centuries-old French word for “prostitute.”
She said to Dazed, “A ‘djadja’ is basically a guy spreading false rumors about a girl he couldn’t sleep with.” “This is my narrative.”
She went on to say that she invented the word “djadja.”
“The name itself is meaningless,” she stated in a Dazed interview. “I could have chosen any name at random. I made up the term “djadja” to describe a guy I admired but ultimately found disappointing. Sadly, far too many people accept the man’s version of events. Why should we believe the girls to be narcissists? It also has an honest girl who speaks her mind.
The lyrics of the song have been incorporated into chants and signs, and it has become an anthem for feminist demonstrations.
Nakamura told Dazed, “Seeing my face on banners during feminist protests was very reassuring in that I realized there were many women like me.”
According to Hype magazine, Nakamura became the first French female singer to top the Dutch charts since Edith Piaf in 1961 because the song was so well-liked throughout Europe.
She took home the titles of pop album of the year, international star of the year, and female artist of the year at the Les Flammes awards for rap, R&B, and pop in April 2024.
She remarked at the awards, “I’m very honored because being a black artist and coming from the banlieue is very difficult,” according to The Guardian. (Though banlieue simply means “suburb” in French, the term is typically used to refer to economically marginalized immigrant neighborhoods outside of Paris.)
