Najoua Belyzel

Najoua Belyzel
Background information
Born	15 December 1981 (1981-12-15) (age 27)
Origin	Nancy, Lorraine, France
Genre(s)	Pop rock, electronic
Occupation(s)	Singer
Years active	2005—present
Label(s)	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 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.

Later she met the 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", an electric-pop dance track. The song became a huge hit in France, and peaked at number three on the Top 40 charts in France. It dealt with both homosexuality or even bisexuality and the impossible and pure love for an angel. The video was shot in an abbey. 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 internet a cover song of Marie Laforêt Viens, Viens but it was not meant to be a single. The real singer for her return is La Bienvenue. Some excerpts of the video clip were shown to the fans in December and the final clip was show on TV in February. The single became available on legal donwloading platforms on Frebruary the 13th. The song is about a girl who feels rejected in this world and who doesn't 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" is rumored to be released between May and September ¹ 2009, three years after the first one. It included 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.

Discography

Albums

• 2006 - Entre deux mondes (Also known as Entre deux mondes en équilibre), #7 France, #46 Switzerland.²
• 2008: Au Féminin³

Singles

References

External links

• Official site (in French)
• najoua-belyzel.fr (in French)

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia