Labelle

Maloya electronics of Labelle lives at first as an experience, an accelerator of imagination. Either sung or either declaimed, in the tradition of fonnkèrs from Réunion Island, rhythmical, electronic or more experimental, he is constantly surprising by his capacity to pull atmospheres and by the introspection which he generates.

Resolutely syncretic, the universe of Labelle unites maloya (from Reunion traditional music) and electronics, colored with Indian and African touches, to give birth to a new shape flirting with the universality.

On stage, Labelle lives in its music and invites the public in the meditative depth, in the dance, even in the trance.

As a teenager he discovered maloya, a style of traditional Réunion music that dates back to the days of colonization – and slavery, andwas banned for decades by a conservative and assimilationist government, which sought to erase the style’s autonomist and secessionist roots. 

Prompted by his passion for the style’s three-part rhythm, Labelle decided to move to La Réunion in 2011, as if out of an irrepressible need to come back home to his musical inspirations, but also his origins, in search of his identity in a world still steeped in the hangover of colonialism. It is on the Island, amid a vibrant patchwork of ethnicities and faiths, in the middle of the stifling flora, and bathed in the Indian Ocean’s varied musical heritage, that he would commit himself to composing full-time.

Prix

• Grand Prix UNAC 2020
• Prizewinner of « Prix Musiques de l’Océan Indien » 2015-2016
• « Best Artist Pop Rock Électro » and « Best Music Vidéo » at Les Voix de l’Océan Indien 2014