MAMA AFRICA

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

Marie Daulne, the lead singer for the vocal group Zap Mama, has a personal history worthy of a leading character in a Jean-Claude Van Damme flick. After her Belgian father was slain in 1964 by rebels bent on ethnic cleansing, Daulne, a native of Zaire, and her Bantu mother took shelter with a tribe of pygmies before escaping to Belgium. With a background like that, it's no wonderDaulne makes music that sounds like a one-woman multicultural movement, melding African percussion, American soul and European urbanity.

Seven (Luaka Bop/Warner Bros.), Zap Mama's new album, is actually its third release (the whimsical Daulne liked the symbolism of the number seven). It's a creative breakthrough for the group--its previous work, which was mostly a cappella, often seemed unfinished and overly jokey. For Seven, instrumentalists have been brought in to help out, as have some accomplished producers, including Michael Franti of the hip-hop soul group Spearhead.

Daulne, 32, has a sad, splintery voice and an emotional clock that seems permanently set at midnight. Her background singers, harmonizing, chanting, even bleating, provide her with a vocal backdrop that's by turns naturalistic and a little coy. One song, the jazzy Nostalgie Amoureuse, feels like vocal film noir--shadowy and mysterious until, toward the end, Daulne's voice emerges from the mix with bruised passion. Other songs, like African Sunset, draw deftly on the upbeat music of South Africa's townships. But the best song is Daulne's seductive cover of Phoebe Snow's Poetry Man; that song, like much of this fine CD, has the liquid groove of hip-hop and the broken heart of a great torch song.

--C.J.F.