Aya Nakamura Asserts Musical Vision, Refuses to be Categorized

Aya Nakamura is 23 years old, she grew up in Seine-Saint-Denis.
Photo Valery Hache / AFP - AFP
Aya Nakamura is 23 years old, she grew up in Seine-Saint-Denis. Photo Valery Hache / AFP - AFP
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Aya Nakamura Asserts Musical Vision, Refuses to be Categorized

Aya Nakamura is 23 years old, she grew up in Seine-Saint-Denis.
Photo Valery Hache / AFP - AFP
Aya Nakamura is 23 years old, she grew up in Seine-Saint-Denis. Photo Valery Hache / AFP - AFP

Aya Nakamura, the most listened to French artist around the world, said refuses to be categorized after she gained popularity thanks to her Afropop sound and street slang.

"I asserted my musical vision and that's what I'm most proud of," she told AFP.

Known as the arrogant star, Aya said: "I may be the most listened to (French) artist in the world, but I remain someone's mother, and someone's sister and the most important thing to me is to spend time with my family."

Her album "AYA" has been downloaded more than 12 million times on the Spotify platform, becoming the third most listened to album in the world -- ahead of the latest release by AC/DC.

When talking about these figures, the singer seems stunned.

"I didn't know that. It's an amazing thing, really," she noted.

"I was a little stressed, because I had wondered if I should do something similar to my second album Nakamura, while I wanted to do something else," she added.

However, Nakamura said she will continue "making the music she loves" while adding that she refuses to be categorized.

In her new album, she explores "love in all its aspects," in her own way, of course.

Her second album Nakamura (2018) is the one that changed her life. Driven by the two great hits Djadja (700 million views on YouTube) and Pookie, it has sold over a million copies.

In Djadja, she recounts her romantic setbacks with an ex-partner. The song was a hit and ranked number one in the Netherlands, a first for a French singer since Edith Piaf.

Then it was remixed by Colombian singer Maluma, a huge star in Latin America and the United States, who worked with Madonna and Shakira.

Born in Mali as Aya Danioko, she grew up on the outskirts of Paris surrounded by the music of her family of traditional singer-poets or "griots".

She caught her break after posting songs on social media, choosing the name Nakamura in homage to a character from the American television series "Heroes".



Scientists Unearth 74-million-year-old Mouse-Sized Mammal Fossil in Chile

This illustration by Mauricio Alvarez depicts 'Yeutherium pressor,' a tiny mammal that lived in the time of the dinosaurs in what is now southern Chile. Universidad de Chile via AFP
This illustration by Mauricio Alvarez depicts 'Yeutherium pressor,' a tiny mammal that lived in the time of the dinosaurs in what is now southern Chile. Universidad de Chile via AFP
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Scientists Unearth 74-million-year-old Mouse-Sized Mammal Fossil in Chile

This illustration by Mauricio Alvarez depicts 'Yeutherium pressor,' a tiny mammal that lived in the time of the dinosaurs in what is now southern Chile. Universidad de Chile via AFP
This illustration by Mauricio Alvarez depicts 'Yeutherium pressor,' a tiny mammal that lived in the time of the dinosaurs in what is now southern Chile. Universidad de Chile via AFP

Scientists have discovered the fossil of a tiny mouse-sized mammal that lived in the time of the dinosaurs in Chilean Patagonia.

The discovery was published last week in the British scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

“Yeutherium pressor” weighed between 30 and 40 grams (about one ounce) and lived in the Upper Cretaceous period, about 74 million years ago.

It is the smallest mammal ever found in this region of South America.

The fossil consists of “a small piece of jaw with a molar and the crown and roots of two other molars,” Hans Puschel, who led the team of scientists from the University of Chile and Chile's Millennium Nucleus research center on early mammals, told AFP.

Researchers found the fossil in the Rio de Las Chinas Valley in Chile's Magallanes region, about 3,000 kilometers south of Santiago.

Despite its similarity to a small rodent, "Yeutherium pressor" was a mammal that must have laid eggs, like the platypus, or carried its young in a pouch like kangaroos or opossums.

The shape of its teeth suggests that it probably had a diet of relatively hard vegetables.
Just like the dinosaurs with whom it co-existed, the tiny mammal abruptly went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period, about 66 million years ago.