Sandra Nkaké, Biography
She’s a singer endowed with an incredible voice, a beautiful cocoa brown body and a fiery nature. She’s a show-girl, a comedian and a dancer when the fancy takes her.
Ladies and Gentleman, it is my pleasure to introduce the one and only: Sandra Nkaké, a precious bird…
What's with the announcement in the American style? Well, Sandra Nkaké is an artist of international standing and listening to and meeting her for the first time leaves you speechless. Once you've pulled yourself together many questions rush to your mind: "but who's this hottie? Where's she from? Atlanta? Or is it Philly? Or Georgia? Where can I get her music? When is her next gig? Is there a producer in the room?
HOLD IT: I have the answers to all of these questions!
Sandra Nkaké was born in Cameroon, in Yaoundé on November 15th of 1973. For a long time she thought she would teach English, but the Ministry of Education didn’t get the better of her and that’s great news for us listeners.
When she was only three-month old Sandra was already on a plane nestled in the arms of a mother who shared her time between Africa and France. This may explain the restlessness about her but it’s far from being the only thing she inherited from her mother.
In Sandra Nkaké’s case the expression “feeling the beat” takes its full dimension.
One night, while expecting her first child, a baby girl, she was listening to B.B. King’s the thrill is gone and felt an emotion that was so overwhelming that she burst into tears without knowing why.
We all know pregnant women are very emotional but the truth is when Sandra’s mother was pregnant with her, she would listen to this very song over and over again. And so music was just continuing its journey as if by magic.
Folk, Soul, Jazz, and Hip hop but also Bulgarian voices and Flamenco. From Jeff Buckley to Miles Davis and Nina Simone; from Joni Mitchell to Aretha Franklin, Björk, Buni Raitt or La Niña de los peines, Sandra has no favourite style of music. Pure and simple emotion is what truly matters and it’s precisely the ground on which she builds her own music.
Sandra was quickly immersed in a universe full of images, sounds and characters. She experienced her first visual shock when watching Time of the Gypsies by Emir Kusturica who instantly became her favourite movie director. Listening to his band’s music, The No Smoking Orchestra, brings out the gypsy in her!
Sandra’s innate talent for embracing elements supposedly unconnected to her persona enables her to display limitless audacity. She is also a comedian whose debut part on stage was that of Tituba in the theatrical version of Maryse Condé’s novel, Tituba, Witch of Salem. Sandra was 20 back then.
She then appeared in many TV movies, feature films and again on the stage with Romane Bohringer among other comedians in Fantomas revient.
Last summer she was lucky enough to open for Kusturica’s band in Bastia.
But another dream has come true…
At long last, Sandra Nkaké’s first album, “MANSAADI” is due on October 21st! And it is long expected by the numerous fans who have been following and supporting her career ever since her first concerts in France.
Fourteen songs about love, sharing, communication, sincerity; fourteen songs about who she truly is: a woman-child, a boyish woman, a mother, a free, instinctive and sensitive woman who fully bear the weight of being seen as a panther when she feels more like a tiny mouse. For despite her sophisticated, diva-like stance Sandra is a very shy person (but recovering!). As a child suffering from stammer and dyslexia, artistic expression in all forms and shapes saved her from what could have turned out to be a handicap.
By the way, the album comprises a cover of Georges Brassens’ La Mauvaise Réputation which seems to have been written for her because Sandra is never where you expect her, never who you think she is. You label her soul/r’n’b artist…she throws in a sound like that of a great opera singer. Her album is a snapshot of her life up to now.
MANSAADI (Little Mama in abo, a dialect spoken in South West Cameroon) is dedicated to her mother, Lucie, who was gone before seeing her daughter on stage. The drama caused by her premature death gave Sandra the strength she probably lacked so far and triggered the release of this debut album. Sandra was her mother’s little mama for a long time, and her relatives and friends gathered around her for MANSAADI, just like a family: Vince Théard on keys and production, Guillaume Farley on bass and backing vocals, Didier Combrouze on guitar and backing vocals, Lawrence Clais on drums and backing vocals, and Booster on some of the programming.
After touring with her band all over France and Europe for two years and a half, after countless artistic and humanly rich encounters, Sandra N’kaké got involved in the adventure of recording this album; she did it open-heartedly and out loud. Thanks to MANSAADI she found out a lot about herself. The whole process taught her to make her own decisions, not to indulge in self-flagellation, to do things when she feels the time is right not when it has to be done. MANSAADI brought Sandra closer to herself.
It is now your turn to discover this artist, this writer/composer/singer. Her album may remind you of such or such other singer… But forget about all this, Sandra is uncompromising, unique and authentic. You will get to know her by listening to MANSAADI, available on CornerShop and distributed by Naïve.
Yep… there WAS a producer in the room!.
ALINE AFANOUKOE (radio Nova)
She’s a singer endowed with an incredible voice, a beautiful cocoa brown body and a fiery nature. She’s a show-girl, a comedian and a dancer when the fancy takes her.
Ladies and Gentleman, it is my pleasure to introduce the one and only: Sandra Nkaké, a precious bird…
What's with the announcement in the American style? Well, Sandra Nkaké is an artist of international standing and listening to and meeting her for the first time leaves you speechless. Once you've pulled yourself together many questions rush to your mind: "but who's this hottie? Where's she from? Atlanta? Or is it Philly? Or Georgia? Where can I get her music? When is her next gig? Is there a producer in the room?
HOLD IT: I have the answers to all of these questions!
Sandra Nkaké was born in Cameroon, in Yaoundé on November 15th of 1973. For a long time she thought she would teach English, but the Ministry of Education didn’t get the better of her and that’s great news for us listeners.
When she was only three-month old Sandra was already on a plane nestled in the arms of a mother who shared her time between Africa and France. This may explain the restlessness about her but it’s far from being the only thing she inherited from her mother.
In Sandra Nkaké’s case the expression “feeling the beat” takes its full dimension.
One night, while expecting her first child, a baby girl, she was listening to B.B. King’s the thrill is gone and felt an emotion that was so overwhelming that she burst into tears without knowing why.
We all know pregnant women are very emotional but the truth is when Sandra’s mother was pregnant with her, she would listen to this very song over and over again. And so music was just continuing its journey as if by magic.
Folk, Soul, Jazz, and Hip hop but also Bulgarian voices and Flamenco. From Jeff Buckley to Miles Davis and Nina Simone; from Joni Mitchell to Aretha Franklin, Björk, Buni Raitt or La Niña de los peines, Sandra has no favourite style of music. Pure and simple emotion is what truly matters and it’s precisely the ground on which she builds her own music.
Sandra was quickly immersed in a universe full of images, sounds and characters. She experienced her first visual shock when watching Time of the Gypsies by Emir Kusturica who instantly became her favourite movie director. Listening to his band’s music, The No Smoking Orchestra, brings out the gypsy in her!
Sandra’s innate talent for embracing elements supposedly unconnected to her persona enables her to display limitless audacity. She is also a comedian whose debut part on stage was that of Tituba in the theatrical version of Maryse Condé’s novel, Tituba, Witch of Salem. Sandra was 20 back then.
She then appeared in many TV movies, feature films and again on the stage with Romane Bohringer among other comedians in Fantomas revient.
Last summer she was lucky enough to open for Kusturica’s band in Bastia.
But another dream has come true…
At long last, Sandra Nkaké’s first album, “MANSAADI” is due on October 21st! And it is long expected by the numerous fans who have been following and supporting her career ever since her first concerts in France.
Fourteen songs about love, sharing, communication, sincerity; fourteen songs about who she truly is: a woman-child, a boyish woman, a mother, a free, instinctive and sensitive woman who fully bear the weight of being seen as a panther when she feels more like a tiny mouse. For despite her sophisticated, diva-like stance Sandra is a very shy person (but recovering!). As a child suffering from stammer and dyslexia, artistic expression in all forms and shapes saved her from what could have turned out to be a handicap.
By the way, the album comprises a cover of Georges Brassens’ La Mauvaise Réputation which seems to have been written for her because Sandra is never where you expect her, never who you think she is. You label her soul/r’n’b artist…she throws in a sound like that of a great opera singer. Her album is a snapshot of her life up to now.
MANSAADI (Little Mama in abo, a dialect spoken in South West Cameroon) is dedicated to her mother, Lucie, who was gone before seeing her daughter on stage. The drama caused by her premature death gave Sandra the strength she probably lacked so far and triggered the release of this debut album. Sandra was her mother’s little mama for a long time, and her relatives and friends gathered around her for MANSAADI, just like a family: Vince Théard on keys and production, Guillaume Farley on bass and backing vocals, Didier Combrouze on guitar and backing vocals, Lawrence Clais on drums and backing vocals, and Booster on some of the programming.
After touring with her band all over France and Europe for two years and a half, after countless artistic and humanly rich encounters, Sandra N’kaké got involved in the adventure of recording this album; she did it open-heartedly and out loud. Thanks to MANSAADI she found out a lot about herself. The whole process taught her to make her own decisions, not to indulge in self-flagellation, to do things when she feels the time is right not when it has to be done. MANSAADI brought Sandra closer to herself.
It is now your turn to discover this artist, this writer/composer/singer. Her album may remind you of such or such other singer… But forget about all this, Sandra is uncompromising, unique and authentic. You will get to know her by listening to MANSAADI, available on CornerShop and distributed by Naïve.
Yep… there WAS a producer in the room!.
ALINE AFANOUKOE (radio Nova)