AVIVA-BERLIN.de im April 2024 - Beitrag vom 24.09.2009


Interview with Newcomer Malika Ayane
Stefanie Denkert

The 25-year-old singer is already a star in Italy. In October 2009 her debut album will be released in Germany. AVIVA-Berlin talked to Malika about her passion for music, her cello and fashion.

AVIVA-Berlin: Congratulations Malika, your album "Malika Ayane" is wonderful! I tried to describe your style of music to our readers but it was difficult for me because you mix so many different styles together. How would you describe your music style?
Malika Ayane: Thank you! I really hope the German people will love it too! About me and myself, well... I don´t have a unique preferred style. As a matter of fact my music is composed and influenced by several different aspects, the feeling of the notes, various genres that compose the album, passing from electronic sounds to a more pop style and so on!

AVIVA-Berlin: You are well-known in Italy but not in Germany – yet! How would you describe yourself to someone who doesn´t know you?
Malika Ayane: Let´s hope my music will reach all the German people then! I am a girl who lives for and loves the music. I studied the cello for several years at the conservatory, I love fashion and what it can communicate, and I had this amazing possibility to publish an album with incredible collaborations, what else can I ask for?

AVIVA-Berlin: How come that you speak a bit of German?
Malika Ayane: I don´t speak German properly, but I try my best! My grandmother lived for a while in Germany and my mother moved there for a short while. I basically grew up studying it and then my passion for your country –particularly Berlin, a city that I would like to live in soon. During my latest radio tour in Germany I also got a tattoo there, but this is another point... Anyway, I try my best to speak German and I also speak French, English, and Italian of course, Spanish, and a little bit of Arabic. I grew up in a very multicultural environment.

AVIVA-Berlin: You studied the cello but do you also compose songs with it? If not, how do you compose your songs?
Malika Ayane: On this first record I was so lucky that the songs were written and produced by Ferdinando Arnò, but also Pacifico, Giuliano Sangiorgi (leader of the biggest Italian band at the moment "The Negramaro") and by Paolo Conte. In front of this huge talent I could not ask for more but I am working on my own productions and I am trying to grow also as a composer, so let´s see what happens on the second record… (will be released in Italy in 2010).

AVIVA-Berlin: Who is your favourite musician? Who influenced you?
Malika Ayane: I don´t have a favourite musician. I simply love the music and I listen to a huge variety of style and singers and type of music. I always get influenced by everything I hear. It´s music.

AVIVA-Berlin: For those who don´t speak Italian - what are the songs about that you sing in Italian? What are your favorite topics in general to sing about?
Malika Ayane: Love, feelings, sensations, freedom, happiness… it is much better to listen to the music rather than speak about it!

AVIVA-Berlin: What was it like to work with Paolo Conte?
Malika Ayane: It was a dream come true, I went to his studio in this little part of Piedmont, an Italian region, thanks to Caterina (Caterina Caselli, Chief of Sugar Music, who also discovered Andrea Bocelli, Elisa, and Malika Ayane) that organized and set the idea. I was so honoured to have the opportunity to sing one of his masterpieces, he is simply one of the greatest musician alive...

AVIVA-Berlin: When I heard your voice without knowing that you are only 25 years old, I thought you were much older. Is that because your voice is trained by singing in the choir?
Malika Ayane: I reckon... I ´just´ sing and this is the result, the fact is that I consider my voice as an instrument, and according to that I try to use it to my best, from the very lowest to the highest point possible…

AVIVA-Berlin: I read that you´ve worked on your album since 2007. What are your plans for the next two years?
Malika Ayane: In Italy we have just released the fourth single of this first album "Malika Ayane", and it reached again the top ten highest position in the Italian radio chart. We are working on releasing the second album at the end of 2010.
Whilst abroad the adventure has just started, in Germany I have just done a wide Radio promo tour several weeks ago, ´Feeling Better´ will be the first single for Germany, Holland, France and Benelux, together with few live acts in these countries to promote it... I have been working non-stop since 2007 and I really hope I can continue in this way!

AVIVA-Berlin: As a musician you probably have dreamt of making your own album. What else is your dream as a musician?
Malika Ayane: Continue to play and to sing all around the world enough well to afford to have a normal life with the music.

AVIVA-Berlin: Since you are from Milan, I have to ask: are you interested in fashion? You wear this amazing dress on your album cover!
Malika Ayane: That particular cover dress is done by Capannolo, an Italian designer, I loved it!!! But I really love fashion overall, not as a simple materialist issue, but as a proper means to communicate the creator´s idea and emotions. I was in love with this world before I became a produced singer, and I always go to fashion shows and the fashion week, whenever I can.

AVIVA-Berlin: Thank you so much for this Interview and good luck for the future!
Malika Ayane: Thanks to you and I hope you will like the album too!

Read also our Review of "Malika Ayane" (in German)