Five of the Best Aya Nakamura Live Performances
The French Malian singer has shown us in multiple ways how much of a stellar performer she is, and the value she brings to any event.
Aya Nakamura is one of the biggest and most important Black women working in global music today. It’s a distinction the French Malian singer earned by being ultra-productive, turning out four acclaimed albums in six years, and releasing dozens of ubiquitous hits in France, across Europe, Francophone Africa, and beyond.
An often repeated plaudit is that Nakamura is the most listened-to French-speaking artist in the world, and her successes are proof. A year after the breakout run of her debut album, Journal Intime, she made a massive stride with her sophomore album, Nakamura, which houses some of her biggest songs to date, including “Djadja” and “Copines,” the former inching very close to a billion views on YouTube.
Born in Mali and raised in France from an early age, Nakamura’s musical inclination comes from being born into a family of griots. As a child, she would watch her mom perform her duties as a griot at weddings and funerals, infatuated with the rapt attention people paid to her mother’s voice. However, it took a while for Aya to embrace the possibility of being a singer.
“When I was a kid, I told myself, ‘There's no way I could ever do what my mom's doing.’ She had such a strong voice and presence, and I was too damn shy to even think of singing in front of a crowd myself,” she told Fader back in 2018. Two more albums and more than a handful of hits since then, Nakamura is the premier singer and performer in French pop.
Over the weekend, Nakamura hit back at French far-right groups who were incensed by the suggestion that the singer might perform at the Olympics opening ceremony in Paris, later this summer. Nakamura met with President Emmanuel Macron a month ago and teased the idea of performing a song by the late, great French singer Edith Piaf. During a campaign rally for Reconquête Party, Nakamura’s name reportedly drew boos from the crowd, while a group who refer to themselves as the Natives hung up a banner by the River Seine that read, “There’s no way Aya, this is Paris, not the Bamako market.”
“You can be racist but not deaf… That’s what hurts you!” she wrote back on X. “I’m becoming a number 1 state subject in debates but what do I really owe you? Nada.”
Nakamura has consistently expressed her pride at reflecting the Black French experience, evidenced by her use of argot slang popularized by French hip-hop artists and also in how she constantly adds her flavor to a range of urban musical styles, across dancehall, reggaeton, Afrobeats and zouk. She’s also loudly proud of her Malian heritage, to the point of naming a song after the iconic Malian singer Oumou Sangare. Her convictions as an artist are deeply rooted, easily gleaned from the declarative nature of much of her music, even if your knowledge of French and urban French slang is limited or non-existent.
Her unyielding stance to the recent racist remarks has already garnered support from the French sports minister, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, and the Olympic organizing committee has lent its “total support” to the singer. What remains to be seen is if Aya Nakamura will indeed perform at the Olympics, an event that will be a spectacle in itself considering her established powers as a performer.
For the uninitiated and previously family, here are five performances by Aya Nakamura over the years.
LIVE ON FUNX
When “Djadja” emerged as the song of the summer in France and several countries in Europe, it also went to the No. 1 spot on the official singles chart in the Netherlands. Nakamura became the first French female artist to hit that milestone for the first since Edith Piaf did in 1961 with “Non Je Ne Regrette Rien.” It only made sense that she would perform at the live studios of FunX, the popular Dutch broadcaster. With just her DJ accompanying her, Nakamura performed a medley that included her No. 1 hit, as well as “Copines” and “La Dot.” She wasn’t a commanding figure on stage just yet, often looking away from the camera, but she still had charm going for her at that time.
DEEZER SESSIONS, PARIS
On her early 2023 fourth album, DNK, Aya Nakamura leaned a lot more into the zouk-love genre, delivering some of the silkiest songs in her catalog till date. One of them is “Haut Niveau,” which she performed on the Deezer session series. Singing over a backing track, her unfiltered voice adds a renewed immediacy to the song’s sultry vibe. At the backend of the performance, she briefly dips into a falsetto, just another exhibition of how she can raise the temperature on stage whenever she feels like it.
THE VOICE FRANCE 2023 FINALE
Just around the time “Djadja” was all the rave, Nakamura graced the stage of the reality singing competition, The Voice, to perform a duet of the huge hit song with one of the contestants on the show. Making a return last year, the singer performed a medley in the company of the finalists. Opening with the sassy banger, “Pookie,” the singer had the crowd spellbound and singing along to every word of all four songs, including “Degaine” and “40%.” Accompanied by the four finalists of the show, who added harmonies to the songs, the set inevitably ended with a warm, lively performance of “Djadja.”
FORTNITE SOUNDWAVE SERIES
Most of the time, Aya Nakamura’s music sounds like it’s best enjoyed on a tropical island with a bottle of Casamigos at hand. A similar interpretation definitely guided the design of her curated concert experience in the metaverse, as the final performer in Epic Games’ Fortnite Soundwave series. In her own version of paradise, Nakamura performs on big screens and in sleek fits. The set is filled with live staples, including “Djadja” and “Copines,” using familiar, proven crowd-pleasers to get metaverse explorers grooving, especially those that would’ve been hearing or seeing an avatar of her perform live for the first time.
ACOUSTIC CONCERT AT LANCÔME’S DOMAINE DE LA ROSE
Located in Grasse, in the south of France, Domaine de la Rose is a four-hectare farm compound owned by the luxury perfume brand, Lancôme. Accompanied by a four-person live band, in front of the pink building at the center of the compound, Aya Nakamura delivers a sweetly scented acoustic set, flexing the pure, unadorned beauty of her voice across three groovy hit songs and a closing ballad. On the DNK album hit song, “Baby,” she’s in full siren mode while barely breaking a sweat, before going on to close on more somber terms with “J’ai mal,” singing in the company of a sole guitar. Aya Nakamura reasserts her range.
- This Is What Adekunle Gold Is Listening to Right Now ›
- Interview: How Félicity Ben Rejeb Price Is Reinventing the Afro-French Music Video ›
- The Songs You Need to Hear This Week ›