Zap Mama

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• Genre: World Pop
• Hometown: Brussels
• Zap Mama Website

About

Zap Mama are more than a women's A Capella group, they are a multi-cultural performance group of world class quality. Created by musicologist Marie Daulne in Brussels, Belgium with a few other women of mixed Belgian/Congolese ancestry, the band mixes African, European and American traditions into a new world synthesis. Their melange of elements includes Gospel, Soul, rap, Medieval, Aborigine, Moorish, Doo-Wop, Afro-Cuban, animal sounds, vocal percussion, and the recent addition of drum and bass. Notable for using Pygmy polyphony vocal technique and singing in many tongues, Zap Mama have a strong sense of theater that makes them powerful live performers. Who else could get an audience of a thousand to sing a hauntingly beautiful chant to Zambea, the Pygmy god of peace, in perfect harmony and fade together to a whisper?

- Robert Leaver