“People ask me what style is it?(her music)I’m not sure, it’s Kam Ala!”(laughing). This was Montreal singer Kam Ala attempting to describe her musical melange which will take the average listener for a delightful loop in both their respective styles.
“Au Suivant”, the brand new single with its Martine St. Claire poppy arrangement is quite the contrast with the dark neo-soul of “Solitude” which was released last June with its Latin and African undertones which would not have sounded out of place on Portishead’s classic 1994 trip-hop opus “Dummy” but with a Sade twist.
I asked her not only about Martine St. Claire but about Sade also and George Michael whom she’s sited in the past as influences.
I asked her if she recognized the diversity in that list. “Absolutely, they’re not just the source of what I’ve listened to but it’s also the emotions that they all(Sade, Michael and St. Claire) trigger.
“Martine St. Claire has this really light flow, you know happy which is really poppy. But I still need that depth you know with Sade and with George Michael and all his soul.
Although she never confirmed this to me but her musical diversity may have been inspired by family diversity.
Her mother of Joliette, Qc. of Irish and French-Canadian stock left for Brazil in search of life’s answers after dealing with some family issues. Instead she found the kindred spirit of an Afro-Brazilian percussionist she just met on the street and was drawn to as if this were some Louie Malle romantic film noir piece of celluloid.
They fell in love and Kam Ala was the result of their electric time together. However, Kam Ala’s mother, also an artist and bohemian in her own right, wanted to know nothing about having her first child born in Brazil and wanted her to have the benefits of being born on Canadian soil. She and her mother would lose touch with Kam Ala’s father altogether. She returned to Quebec where she raised Kam Ala in The Plateau district of downtown Montreal. The Cirque De Soleil environment of the neighbourhood’s artsy community was what inspired Kam Ala most of her life coupled with her mother’s creative circle that basically helped raise her.
Fast-forward to March of 1999, Kam is more than 3 months pregnant and is in Rio visiting a friend of her mother’s who a Brazilian journalist, who’s determined to help her find the father that she never met.
Kam attended the world famous Rio Carnival with her journalist contact putting out the word to local musicians that she was searching for her father, a well known local percussionist. The responses ranged from, “Yeah I saw him recently” to “isn’t he dead”?.
Kam had no luck, although she had put out the word of the hostel she was staying at.
At the time, Kam was living in B.C. with a room-mate when she had decided to search for her father during the carnival in Rio. Her Room-mate in B.C. contacted her and told her that someone had called for her but was speaking in Spanish.
Kam, meanwhile at the hostel in Brazil was confused. If it had been her father he would have been speaking Portuguese.
Well truth was, her father was alive and had gotten word that his daughter, whom he had never met was looking for him.
He went to the hostel that he was told that she was staying at looking for her. The hostel of course protected the security of their guest and refused to confirm if such a guest was staying there.
Her father, desperate to see his long-lost daughter told the person reception, “look, my daughter might be staying here and I’ve never met her before and if you don’t help me now, I may never get to meet her”. The reception gave the man her phone number in B.C.
It was her father, Amauri(stage name Didi Sheik) that called who’s Portuguese, Kam’s room-mate mistook for Spanish.
When Kam called the number, a young lady answered speaking in French, saying “Hi, I’m your sister”, thereby confusing Kam even more. Her sister had been educated abroad in Switzerland.
And yes, Kam finally met her long-lost dad, who obviously passed down at least some of his musical chops to her. When I asked Kam if there was there a possibility of a musical collaboration of some sort, she said, “maybe”.
Oh and of her mother Louise’s relationship with the father of her eldest daughter? Through Kam’s reconnection with the man, they fell back in love and rekindled their relationship.
Kam’s mother Louise passed away in 200
Her commitment to social justice and her work with immigrants coming to Canada had a big impact on Kam Ala.
Her music reflects her non-conformist attitude to life in general in its spirit of not wanting to be categorized in the same manner that Kam chooses not to be categorized.
All this will come out in the wash when her yet to be titled, new album finally comes out in November with a surprise she’s promised to those who take the musical trip with her.
My guess? Could be someone special making an appearance at the album launch…???
The Age Of Kam Ala
