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‘Synthesisers can convey emotion too’: Zaho de Sagazan reinvents the French love song despite never falling in love

‘I like not knowing what I’ll do,’ says the 24-year-old who swept the board at the French Grammys and stole the show at Cannes film festival with her freeform dancing in socks

The idea was to be a completely free woman who doesn’t care how she looks in the midst of this closed, self-conscious setting Saint Nazaire is central to her music: this working-class Atlantic port, one of the worst bombed French towns in the second world war, has shaped its mix of cold, hard electronic beats and quirky, flighty lyrics. Her deliberately absurdist, freeform-dancing take on it went viral after she wove through the audience of film stars, boldly kicked off her shoes and leapt about in socks on stage – moving in her personal style which she describes as “teenager dancing alone in their bedroom”. Blending styles from different eras and places is a long tradition in modern French-language music – including by the acclaimed Belgian-Rwandan singer-songwriter/rapper, Stromae, whom De Sagazan cites as a key influence for his combination of “extraordinary lyrics and getting people dancing”.

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