Zap Mama Stays True to Founder’s Roots

How time passes. Next year Zap Mama, one of the most innovative world music groups of the ‘90s, celebrates its 10th birthday. And it’s been a decade of achievement and growth. Originally a five-voice, female a cappella group singing music that blended African and European music, it has now become a vehicle for the creative expression of group founder Marie Daulne.

“Actually,” says Daulne, “it was always my band. Zap Mama was another name for me, and I started the band to represent my ideas, first with other singers. Then, after seven years, when everyone wanted to go in their own directions, I continued the project, because it’s what I was born to do.”

Daulne’s probably right about that, given the circumstances of her birth. Her Belgian father was killed in Zaire before she was born. Taking shelter in the bush, she spent part of her youth with her African mother living with a tribe of Pygmies before eventually winding up in Belgium and studying classical music. But the highly vocalized sounds of Pygmy culture never left her attention, and have become implicit in everything she has done as a composer and performer.

“You know,” she says, “techno or drum-and-bass have exactly the same rhythms as the tribe of my mother.”

The version of Zap Mama that Daulne brings to UCLA’s Royce Hall tonight still consists of five female singers, one of whom is her sister, Anita Daulne. But the vocal ensemble is supported by a four-piece band, and much of tonight’s program will be devoted to the innovative material from her new album “A Ma Zone” (on Luaka Bop).

As in her 1997 album, “Seven,” Daulne reaches out to pull in the threads of many other musics--hip-hop, rap and R&B; among them. But despite the presence of several hip-hop guest performers, the performances are filtered through Daulne’s unique musical consciousness, never losing connection with the Afro-Belgian roots of her art.

“The goal,” she says, “is to bring all the knowledge of voices from the ethnic world to the urban world.”

As the millennium--and Zap Mama’s 10th anniversary--approaches, Daulne is determined to do what she can, as an artist, to bring the elements of the ethnic world into the next century.

“For me,” she says, “the relation between the future and primitive things should be very close. I think they will be very close if we encourage the sounds of nature, sounds made by animals, sounds made from one person to another to another. And that is what I am trying to do with my music.”

* Zap Mama plays tonight at Royce Hall, UCLA. 8 p.m. $20 to $32. (310) 825-2101.

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In Print: If you want to find out about something, who better to ask than someone who does it for a living? And Celtic singer Maireid Sullivan was the perfect choice to be the author of “Celtic Women in Music,” a collection of interviews with many of the major female Irish artists. The Los Angeles-based Sullivan is a highly regarded vocalist with a particular interest in exploring and sustaining the philosophical roots of Celtic culture. As such, she has interacted with her subjects in a fashion that has an impressive degree of forthrightness, both on a personal and professional level.

The 30 artists profiled range from such veterans as Dolores Keane and Grainne Yeats to such high-visibility current performers as Loreena McKennitt, Eileen Ivers and Sheila Chandra.

Some of the most insightful entries are those in which Sullivan’s interest are most in sync with interviewees: a fascinating conversation with singer Noirin Ni Riain touching on everything from gender issues in Celtic music and the Catholic Church to comparative thoughts on the pain and pleasure of performance; a historically informative interview with singer-harpist Maire Ni Chathasaigh; and an entirely different perspective on Celtic music from American-born singer Connie Dover.

The book is an easy and fascinating read, with Sullivan’s gentle but persistent questioning allowing her subjects to illuminate themselves in a fashion that inevitably provokes a desire to hear their music.

* “Celtic Women in Music: A Celebration of Beauty & Sovereignty,” by Maireid Sullivan. Quarry Music Books paperback. $16.95.