Laïka Fatien
Laïka Fatien is a singer who was born in Paris in 1968.
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[edit] Personal life
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She is Black and Jewish. Her mother is a Moroccan-Spanish Jew, and her father is from the Ivory Coast. Fatien was raised mainly by women (her grandmother, mother, and aunt) in a Moroccan Jewish family.
She studied at ARIAL Île-de-France, CIM and IACP (jazz music schools).
In 1998 she had a son, Ilhan, a Boy with mental problems.
[edit] Music career
Carmen McRae, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Abbey Lincoln, and Diane Reeves are her inspirations.
Laïka came into the public eye with Claude Bolling’s orchestra. She featured on several artists’ albums,
Fatien released her first album in 2004. Her international background flavors her CD, Look at Me. It brought a fresh sound to vocal jazz. It was quite clearly different.
Musician and Day to Day contributor David Was offered a review, and saying that artists like Fatien are critical to insuring that jazz remains lively and experimental.
The quintet’s musicians are (David El Malek on tenor sax, Pierre de Bethman on piano, Jules Bikoko Bin’Jami on bass, Dré Pallemaerts on drums) are exceptional.
Look at me now! was recorded live without electronics, with a completely natural sound.[1]
Her stunning 2008 CD Laïka: Misery, A Tribute to Billie Holiday (in memory of Thomas Shipp & Abraham Smith) is on the Blujazz label and features Robert Glasper on piano, David EL-Malek on tenor sax, Daryl Hall on bass, and Gregory Hutchinson on drums. It received ***1/2 stars on Allmusic.com, ****1/2 stars from Downbeat magazine and ***** stars on iTunes and Amazon.com.
[edit] Acting
Also an actress, she had a major role in A Drum Is A Woman directed by Jérôme Savary and performed at Chaillot, and has taken part in numerous festivals.
