A performance of embodied pop, in which a singular voice asserts itself, narrating “a young Afro-descendant woman from the working-class neighborhoods”.
“The idea behind this first album was to tell what is sometimes left unsaid: to be in the truth of the story of a young Afro-descendant woman from the working-class neighborhoods,” she tells us.
Native of Molenbeek, proud of her Belgian roots as well as her Congolese heritage (we hear her father speaking from the very first track, Vol 170197), this singer as gifted as she is precocious cut her teeth in the shadows of Tiakola or Stéfi Celma before being revealed with her EP Plastique (2025) and then finally asserting herself with Jeune & laide.
She does not indulge in complacency, speaking of herself as a “song not mixed” on the eponymous track: “Her writing allowed me to realize that all the ugliness I’ve encountered has built the artist I am. I write about what I’ve lived and about sounds I discovered along this journey.”
Thus one discovers post-grunge rock (Paradoxale), funk (RepeatRepeatRepeat), a synth waltz (Rien à fêter), a high-tempo hip-hop dialogue with Ino Casablanca (Autodéfense), a bouyon whirlwind (Rich), and a blend of calypso and soca Les Euros counterbalancing a “hymn to hardship” for someone who left home too soon, at the age of 16 — “in the veins”, Camille Yembe sings with Lous and the Yakuza, who are also aware of what precarity is.
At its core, a poignant ballad with drum’n’bass beats, Je ne l’ai jamais dit à personne: “It’s a song I hadn’t anticipated and it could even scare me. Yet, even if I think I don’t yet know exactly how much it affects me, I’ve realized its comforting power and it has become indispensable to me.”
It is precisely at this point of profound honesty that lies the entire value of Camille Yembe’s proposition, which could have settled for pretty, well-arranged pop. Yet, the fifteen tracks of Jeune & laide never lose their melodic sense, crafted alongside Armand Tournier (Swing, Bianca Costa): “The harmony of the album lies in what I embody. The way I cut up the productions with my flow is my own, allowing coherence without stifling my artistic freedom.” And one watches, captivated audiences, as this ascent unfolds.
Jeune & laide (Tie Break Music/Wagram). Released May 22. In concert at La Cigale, Paris, on November 6.
