Soleil Launière is not one of those people who prefer to stay away and rest during pregnancy. On the contrary, the Innu artist traveled to Morocco to record a song and shoot the music video.
“You should have seen me trying to scale the dunes of the Sahara with my five-month-old belly, that was pretty funny,” says Soleil Launière, laughing.
The multidisciplinary artist stayed on Moroccan soil for a week, recording a song and shooting her music video. A shooting that shaped the young mother.
“It was so surreal,” she says. “I had to take a few minutes to stop and say to myself, ‘You’re shooting a music video in the middle of the Sahara desert while a five-month-old kicks you in the stomach.’ “It was very moving,” she recalls, still finding it hard to believe. It was a project cancellation in the middle of a pandemic that gave the singer the opportunity to travel to Morocco.
“Before the pandemic, it was supposed to be artists from there who came to Quebec to collaborate,” she explains. “Finally, since we still had the budget [pour une collaboration internationale] and that my director was already in Morocco, we refocused the project.”
Once there, Soleil had an appointment with Berber artists, an indigenous people of North Africa. Of these artists, it is the Moroccan singer Nukad who has teamed up with the Innu singer. This collaboration will appear on Soleil Launière’s next album, which is expected in October.
A calculated risk
“I had carried out all the checks before leaving,” says the new mother of a healthy baby. “Simon [Walls]”My director was already on site and did whatever was necessary to limit the risks.”
All in all, a very productive week for the singer from Mashteuiatsh in Lac-Saint-Jean, although she admits she slowed the troops down.
“Ah, how slowly I walked!” she remembers. “I was lugging my belly and backpack full of pregnant women’s snacks.”
Different settings, same fights
As Soleil Launière says, “We are in the tundra and they are in the desert.”
Through conversations with her co-workers, the singer quickly realized her reality wasn’t that far from hers.
“The Berbers are also fighting to preserve their language,” she says. “As we [les Innus]”They’ve settled down with colonization, they have to survive in a world that’s less and less made for them,” she adds.