Constance Amiot

Interview with Constance Amiot on Acoustic France

By No author
11/11/2008

You have quite an international background: born in Ivory Coast to  French parents, living in the US and then moving to France. How has  that formed you, both as a person and as a musician?

I really enjoyed growing up in a melting pot of cultures, taught me to see things with different angles and point of views, it's probably the best way to look into the real world.

In some ways most of my songs are sculpted by these environments, i like to move around as a songwriter. My acoustic guitar seems to be connected with wide open spaces and my lyrics often switch from  english to french, you can also find a bit of swahili in one of my  songs, a Rwandan dialect.

 Did you already speak French when growing up, or did you have to  learn it when you moved to Paris?

Yes i already spoke french with my parents.

Constance Amiot

Your debut album Fairytales was released in 2007 and now your song  'Clash dans le tempo' is featured on Putumayo's Acoustic France,  available all over the world. How were you approached by Putumayo?

I don't really know how the whole thing happened, i guess they got a  hold of my album and contacted my management and my record company !

How do you feel to have one of your songs on a Putumayo album?

I was probably sixteen when i bought my first Putumayo album, i'm a  big fan of their collection. I was amazed when i heard they had chosen  one of my songs for the « Acoustic France » one. It goes beyond all of  my expectations ! There's a feeling i love about music, the way  melodies transcend borders and languages, the feeling that we're all  sort of connected to a global village, i think Putumayo is a very good  exemple of that, bringing all countries together…

Why was Clash dans le tempo selected for Putumayo's compilation and  what is the song about?

I guess there must be a mood for import in that song !
I wrote that song using a dreamers perspective, i'm saying that  artists try to give people something to dream on, but what happens  when dreamers stop dreaming, when poets stop riming ?At one point of  the song i mention Zorro, arriving like a hero. With all the struggles  and clashes in the world today, it would be nice to put the tempo on  hold for a while and to go back to the dreams we have or had…