Listen 🎧: take off your shoes and dance with me
Beyond Hyphenation Episode #7: Discover how Stromae's hit 'Papaoutai' and Cesária Évora’s soulful 'Sodade' illuminate the complexities of diasporic identity and history
Have you heard this song before? It’s been more than a decade since this song was released and it still makes me want to take off my shoes and dance. If you haven’t I encourage you to watch the music video. It will all make sense by the end of today’s episode.
Welcome back to Episode 7 of Beyond Hyphenation: A Deep History of Diasporas. We took a short break to cover a very news-laden past two weeks, but I am so glad to be back. While I was editing this week’s episode, I saw a news clip circulating about the former President’s comments regarding VP Kamala Harris’s racial identity.
He alluded to this idea that VP Harris, a Jamaican-Indian woman, just “decided to become black” recently. In many ways, he sought to feed into the xenophobic and racist commentary that has increased online ever since the Vice President became the top of the Democratic ticket. However, I think it speaks to a larger issue of ignorance of the experiences of mixed-identity people as well as blackness outside of the United States. Well, this series plans to address this issue in a small way.
If you’re new here, Beyond Hyphenation is a new series exploring how diasporans experience life, past and present, beyond the hyphenation of two national identities.1
In the early 2010s, a lanky fair-skinned man with hair cut just short enough before it would curl dominated the music scene. He was a bit quirky and danced in a coordinated yet purposefully rhythmically challenged way. There was a certain aesthetic about him too. He wore these bold patterns. His music videos often had sharp contrasting colors and required just enough attention for you to follow the intricate stories he told in his music videos. (Yes, back then music videos were still in vogue and very much so highly anticipated).
Stromae’s quirky intellectualism is what made me a huge fan during my freshman year at the University of Chicago ( a place filled with quirky intellectuals in the early 2010s). When my friends and I flocked to his concert in Chicago, we got to see him perform his hit song Papaoutai. Of course, we went super early like the nerdy punctual kids we were back then so we could get a good spot.
As I looked up at him during the show my first thought was “Wow, his skin is just as porcelain-like in real life as it is in all the photos.” He moved and looked like a doll. Just like he did in the Papaoutai video. It was all part of his “genius” persona, constantly keeping fans on the edge of their seats wondering what is the hidden meaning behind all of this.2 He’s always been a sort of a walking social commentary column. Before there was the “dude with the sign,” there was Stromae.
Streaming was just becoming popular back then, but Stromae’s hit song and music video garnered millions of views and downloads at the time. In fact, Papaoutai has more than 1 billion views now. As we danced along to his catchy pop sounds, I remember turning to my friend periodically for translations.
My French was in its infancy phase then, so while I could sing along to all of Stromae’s lyrics some of the meaning evaded me at the time. My friend, fluent in French, had to break it to me right then and there. Papaoutai is about Stromae’s desire to find and reconnect with the father he never knew.
Before Stromae became the French singing international pop star he is, he was Paul van Haver born and raised in Brussels to a Flemish mother and a Rwandan Father. When his father went home in 1994 to visit family, he was unfortunately killed during the Rwandan Genocide. So I asked myself how could a catchy song be about such a tragic and traumatic fact in Stromae’s life.
Stromae, I think, represents something quite important about the diasporic experience. It’s something we all have to deal with eventually– the loss and nostalgia for a home you either never knew or left behind at a young age. Not everyone chooses to be a member of a diaspora, but somehow everyone copes with the the migratory decisions that were made with or without them. For Stromae, music is his balm.
As my French improved so did my appreciation of Stromae. I still listen to Stromae (even through long droughts of music releases) because of what he represents for a quirky intellectual diasporic kid like myself.
Other than Papaoutai, one of my favorite songs off the album was “Ave Cesoria.” It’s the song I wanted you to listen to earlier. The song pays hommage to the Cape Verdean legend Cesária Évora. Born in the Portuguese colony of Cape Verde on August 27, 1941, Évora also lost her father at a young age. Her mother was unable to take care of her, so she was sent off to an orphanage.
By her late teens, she began singing a blues-like genre known as morna in kriolu, the Creole language of Cape Verde. In her late 40s, she was invited to Lisbon to perform and she became the soulful darling of her time. Her no-BS demeanor as well as her signature performance style is what set her apart on the international stage. She became known as the “barefoot diva” as she would perform her iconic music barefoot swaying from side to side.
While sitting in a restaurant in Lisbon with a Portuguese friend, I heard Évora’s song Sodade come on. I started singing along and my friend's shocked look didn’t stop me. It was such a beautiful song sung in Cape Verdean Creole about the nostalgic experiences of people who have left the island for centuries not knowing if they would ever return. Évora is melancholy sharing the history of her people.
For centuries, Cape Verdeans were seen as experienced and exceptional whalers. Many of these whalers moved to New England where whaling was a very profitable industry that lacked skilled American workers. In the 19th century, before petroleum-linked oils were used for energy in homes (think lamps), animal-derived (whale) fat was used.
This is one of many reasons why there is such a huge Cape Verdean diasporic community in Providence, Rhode Island. When I lived there, I remember seeing a plaque that paid homage to early Cape Verdean communities right near the canal that leads out to the Atlantic Ocean. Also, I had some amazing Cape Verdean food when I lived there.
These global connections and histories hopefully illustrate how complex the lived experiences of people living in the diaspora can be. What is more diasporic than a Belgian-Rwandan artist singing about a Cape Verdean legend in French? or a Nigerian American woman dancing to Cape Verdean blues in Lisbon?
After I explained to my Portuguese friend why I knew the song because of the connection between Stromae and Cesária Évora, we got up and danced. I slid my shoes off tired from a long day of walking up and down the steep hills of Lisbon. I danced barefoot, honoring the now-passed legend and the histories and stories her music carried. This is what it means to live beyond hyphenations.
we dig deeper next week,
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Stromae is a reconfiguration of the word “maestro”! Geniussss
every so often i’m reminded of how much i love stromae. thank you for the much needed reminder!