Star Feminine Band - In Paris

Star Feminine Band - In Paris

Tracklist:
1. We are Star Feminine Band
2. Le Mariage forcé
3. Peba Ikisina
4. Ete we Gbetoyi
5. Le droit de l'enfant
6. Igousounon
7. L'excision
8. Nous sommes les mêmes
9. Woman Stand Up

To produce a record can be quite an adventure - to do so with young girls from
Northwest Benin is one tall order. Though not exactly a world music label, Born
Bad took up the challenge and released Star Feminine Band's first album to
critical acclaim. Unfortunately, the subsequent European tour was cancelled due
to Covid. The pandemic didn't get the better of them, though; with their desire to
go up on European stages still very much alive, the combo reappeared on the
Transmusicales festival's line- up just one year later and recorded this album
whilst in France.

The album presents a feverish and energetic soundtrack in which nabo, peulh and
waama are enlivened with drum lines and spiced up with more "modern" sounds,
spreading words of tolerance and kindness. Simple and direct, they speak of their
reality, of the ills of young women who don't always have a choice. Often out of
school and destined to selling peanuts, bananas or gari on the roadside, most of
the girls around there don't have a future. Forced marriage, precocious
pregnancies…

Thanks to the English lessons that their manager Jérémie Verdier has been
providing every Sunday night for two years over videoconference, the girls even
experimented with English lyrics in "We Are Star Feminine Band" and "Woman
Stand Up".