Najoua Belyzel

Najoua Belyzel
Background information
Born	(1981-12-15) 15 December 1981
Origin	Nancy, Lorraine, France
Genres	Pop rock, electronic
Occupation(s)	Singer
Years active	2005–present
Labels	Scorpio Music, Sony Music Entertainment
Website	Official site (in French)

Najoua Belyzel (born Najoua Mazouri 15 December 1981 in Nancy, France) is a French pop rock/electronic singer of Moroccan-Egyptian descent.

Biography

Najoua was born in Nancy, and grew up in a large family with three sisters and two brothers. Her father is Moroccan and her mother is Egyptian. Since childhood, she had shown an interest in music, and by age 14, had begun writing her own songs.

Najoua originally studied law beginning in 2001 at the University of Nancy, but left for Paris to pursue a career in music. She met some success after a casting call when she joined the group Benoît, who had a successful single called "Tourne-toi Benoît", which touched on the subject of homosexuality. The later singles from the group, however, only met moderate success, and eventually the group parted ways.

She kept on working with the group's songwriter Christophe Casanave, whose work had already been performed by popular French acts Steeve Estatof and Marc Lavoine. The two worked together on a song called "Stella", which would later appear on her debut album.

The song "Née de l'amour et de la haine" was Belyzel's first demo in 2002.

In 2005, Najoua released her first single, titled 'Gabriel' (The Angel Gabriel), an electro-pop dance track which has become her signature song. A video was released to accompany it telling the 'story' behind the song, showing Najoua wearing angel wings, attended by seraphs. She has recently adopted the sitting Angel profile portrait of herself used on the album as her motif. Gabriel became a huge hit in France, Belgium and Quebec, by far her best selling number which peaked at number three on the Top 40 charts in France. Najoua developed a very dramatic stage routine to encapsulate the song and it's highly charged emotional content, as demonstrated in the celebrated 'back to school' performance in Lille in 2006. Najoua has said herself that the song has nothing to do with gay issues, as has been suggested, but concerns the unlikely love of a human girl for an archangel and whether that can be reciprocated. So it's about Angelsexuality - not homosexuality. The video thus ends enigmatically and ambiguously, with Gabriel being 'awakened' from stone with a kiss, and his world shattered (literally). It was shot very appropriately in the stark interior and beautiful grounds of the ruined ancient Cistercian Abbaye de Notre-Dame du Val à MERIEL

On 29 May 2006, she released her debut album titled Entre deux mondes, which debuted at #7 on the French charts and at #1 on the iTunes France music store. In late 2006 and early 2007, she embarked on a tour with other artists across France and Francophone Europe to promote her album. Two other singles were released, "Je Ferme les Yeux" in June 2006, which was also an electro-pop title but it met with less success than "Gabriel". The theme was a prayer to God to make this world better. The third single was "Comme Toi" a song about duality and schizophrenia. The video clip featured two Najoua, a warrior-like blond and a trapped brunette. The album is mainly electro-pop with some ballads. It deals with many different themes such as love, friendship (Stella), war, pedophilia (Docteur Gel) her distress and disappointment when Najoua came to Paris (Bons Baisers de Paris)

Najoua Belyzel released a new single, "Quand revient l'été", on 10 September 2007.

She has been compared to Mylène Farmer, mainly because the video clip for "Gabriel" was shot in the same abbey as one of Mylene's clip "Je te rends ton amour") and because they write about similar themes, but Najoua says she never wanted to copy Mylene and that they both have their distinctive universes.

During the Summer 2008 she released on the Iinternet a cover song of Marie Laforêt "Viens, Viens", but it was not meant to be a single. Najoua returned with the new single "La Bienvenue". Some excerpts of the video clip were shown to the fans in December and the final clip was shown on TV in February. The single became available on legal downloading platforms on 13 February. The song is about a girl who feels rejected in this world and who does not see the good in her. The video features a mannequin becoming alive (played by Najoua) but who is then disappointed by the cruelty of the world and finally decides to return to her previous state.

Najoua's new album Au Feminin was released on 23 November 2009,^[1] three years after the first one. It includes a duet with Marc Lavoine called "Viola" as well as songs called Hey Hey Hey, Ma Sainte-Nitouche, La Trève. Her song "Née de l'amour et de la haine" is also included.

In September 2014, after a gap of five years, and much to the acclaim of her fans, Najoua has released a new song 'Rendez-Vous' with accompanying video, shot in the night by the banks of the Seine in a deserted Paris. There is also an acoustic live performance video of Rendez-Vous filmed under a bridge over the Seine at night. She has parted from her previous label Scorpio and has released this and a new album under 'Les Edition Gabriel'.

Discography

Albums

• 2006 – Entre deux mondes (Also known as Entre deux mondes en équilibre), #7 France, #46 Switzerland, 160,000 sales.^[2]
• 2009: Au Féminin #66 France 10,000 sales^[3]
• 2015: De la Lune au Soleil (date released TBA)

Singles

References

External links

• www.belyzel-najoua.com (in French)