Mirna - Redemption (2023) Album

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Mirna – Redemption (2023) Album

Label: Attik Productions | Baco Music
Written by: Mirna & Kubix
Composed by: Mirna & Kubix
Mirna (lead vocal), Tomas Cirade (Bass), Xavier Begue (guitar, clavier, percu), Rico Gautier (Sax, flute), Mathieu Henning (trombone)
Mixed & mastered by: Sebastien Houot
Release date: 11/03/2023

The excitement was perceptible recently: a featuring on the album of the Senegalese Meta, DIA, a sure bet in reggae; another on the album of the collective Jahzz led by Jamaican veterans; a third on the deluxe version of Guitar Chant, the highly acclaimed project by Frenchman Kubix. And an EP with the Jamaican Rev. Tishion in 2022. Ideal as a teaser, to whet your appetite.

Here is Redemption, Mirna‘s new album which confirms what these recent quality collaborations suggested: the thirty-year-old singer has the background and talent to make a place for herself on the female reggae scene. And in this area, she has some great references: Judy Mowatt, the former backing vocalist for Bob Marley & The Wailers, whose album Black Woman still gives her “goosebumps” when she listens to it; or, from a more contemporary generation, the reggaewoman Dezarie from the Virgin Islands and her Gracious Mama Africa with the unclassifiable Midnite.

Between reggae and Mirna, the relationship is as strong as it is deep. Our thirty-year-old singer of Lebanese origin grew up in Ivory Coast, “the third country of reggae”, she emphasizes. If this musical style is part of the decor there, she remembers the day when she really felt its effects, like a revelation: entering the room of her older brother who was listening to Brigadier Sabari by Alpha Blondy. Time to digest all her influences, to find her way, and here she is in 2015 with a first album under her arm: The Train of Changes, co-produced by Tiken Jah Fakoly and intended for the local market. With concerts at major reggae events in Africa, such as the Abi Reggae Festival.

To give it a sequel, which we discover today through Redemption, Mirna traveled the reggae planet. Starting with Jamaica, a must for those who have embraced its music, its spirit, and want to experience the overflowing creative energy of this island. For Mirna, going there was also part of this ancestral, cultural symbolism, which brings together West Africa and the Caribbean. It was therefore in the country of Bob Marley, and even in the Tuff Gong studios of the family of the king of reggae, that she recorded two titles with the participation of keyboardist Robbie Lyn, a pillar of Jamaican music: ska Reggae Party and Redemption, a duet with singer Derajah, a song whose name became the title of the album. Through this term, it is a question of “rebirth”, a way of “leaving things behind to get better”, explains the woman who dedicated her first song in 2010 to Liberia – her native land that she had to flee in family at the time of the civil war and where she finally returned.

Another stage in the development of Redemption, South Africa, which occupies a special place in the history of reggae thanks to Lucky Dube, whose songs continue to resonate across a large part of the African continent. Accompanied by the musicians of Azania Band, a formidable backing band often called upon in southern Africa and the Indian Ocean, Mirna recorded other pieces in a studio in Cape Town, notably a duet with Crosby, one of the figures reggae locals.

Finally, there is France, where this self-taught guitarist has come to live for several years. Alongside Kubix, a central element of the French reggae scene, she continued her work in the Paris region. In the studio and on stage as well as in town, she highlights the role of her pygmalion, who obviously shared all his know-how with her. Other encounters (for example Tyrone Downie, for the Jahzz project from which Music Is My Soul emerged) further broadened his horizons and allowed him to gain more experience. Even exploring new directions, like the nyabinghi Take Me To Zion with percussionist Manjul. In her own way, through the prism of the ten songs from Redemption, Mirna honors the diversity as well as the richness of reggae.