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WOMADELAIDESAWEEKEND NOVEMBER 3-4, 2018

KINDREDSPIRITCuban singer Yaite Ramos Rodriquez is heading to WOMADelaide inspired by a friendly French phantom

WORDS JANE CORNWELL

Five years ago Yaité RamosRodriguez was on vacation,sleeping in the attic of arambling old house inNormandy, northernFrance, when she saw theghost. A woman ofindeterminate age, dressedin floating white, winkingat her from a gently moving rocking chair. Alit cigar in one hand, a glass of dark liquid –which might have been rum – in the other.

“I was fascinated, not really scared,”remembers Rodriguez with a smile. “She hada warm, friendly presence and this sense ofmischief; she mimicked my surprised face.Then, suddenly, like that” – she clicks her

elegant fingers, with their long, frosted nails –“she was gone.”

At breakfast the next morning her hosts (thegrandparents of her French boyfriend) wereunfazed. The ghost, they said, was known asthe White Lady, a benign yet powerful spiritwho appeared randomly, only making herselfvisible to the sensitive, the seekers, those withspecial talents. Rodriguez, a gifted singer,percussionist and flautist, was transfixed.Here, she realised, was the inspiration she’dbeen looking for ever since she had relocatedto Paris from Cuba in the late 1990s – going onto sing backing vocals in a rich and wideranging voice that made a series of leadsingers sound way better than they were.

Here was a persona with which she could

reinvent herself as a solo artist. The WhiteLady. La Dame Blanche.

No matter that Rodriguez, 39, is black, thedaughter of famed trombonist Jesus “Aguaje”Ramos, artistic director of the mega-sellingBuena Vista Social Club, and a proud Afro-Cubana from the steamy tobacco-growingprovince of Pinar del Rio in western Cuba.

“There was nothing tragic about my WhiteLady,” says Rodriguez, aka rapper/singer LaDame Blanche, sitting in a cafe by the canal inStalingrad, Paris, near the apartment sheshares with her 12-year-old daughter; anotherdaughter, 18, is at university in Toulouse.

“My spirit was dressed just like a Santera,”she says, referring to adherents of the Afro-Cuban Santeria faith, which mixesCatholicism and West African beliefs, evengiving cigars and rum religious significance;like most Afro-Cubans, Rodriguez is afollower. “At that point I’d been going throughsome tough times. It’s not a subject I like totalk about because people think I’m crazy. ButI saw her, and she gave me hope.”

Three albums on, and La Dame Blancheis a big deal in France. She’s wowedfestivals in New York, Kathmandu andMexico City; in July she made her UK debut atWOMAD in Wiltshire, delivering a set thatbecame the talk of the weekend. Sashayingonstage in a white lace catsuit, her dark braidswrapped in white cloth, a crucifix on a chainaround her neck, she offered the crowd shotsof rum before puffing on a cigar, taking themic and launching into Ave Maria, a cappellaat first, before two musicians on drums andkeyboards changed the song’s direction, thechug of electronic trap and sway of Colombiancumbia accompanying socially-conscious,fiercely-rapped Spanish-language lyrics; nowand then Rodriguez broke off to play roundsof fiery jazz flute.

It was arresting, danceable stuff, with songssuch as Una Copa Llena (A Full Cup)showcasing her knack for catchy chants andbold-as-brass rap verses and Bajo El MismoCielo (Under the Same Sky), the title of hercurrent third album, veering from folkieCuban nueva trova to bouncing Jamaicandance hall and reggae. The song that featureson the album also includes flamenco vocalsand Spanish guitar, along with input fromguest musicians from Brazil, Mexico andSouth Africa: “I call my music ‘hip-hop-urbano-Cubano’,” she tells me. “Hip-hopreflects a specific place, a neighbourhood, astreet corner, the every day. And being fromCuba I am always proud of my roots.

“Hip-hop is my bridge between musicalstyles. It allows me to sing, rap, play my fluteand mix the sounds I hear in Paris, this verycosmopolitan city.”

There is a part of her that is still the younggirl who fought to get her famous father’sattention, being one of seven children born todifferent mothers (“My father was a greatlover”) and a talented musician in anextended family where artistry was the norm(her uncle, for example, is singer MayitoRivera, late of supergroup Los Van Van).

Growing up in Pinar del Rio, in a smallwooden shack with a piano and rooms dividedby plywood, she remembers visits by mature-age maestros from the Grammy-winningBuena Vista Social Club.

“They’d come back after playing clubs likethe Tropicana and us kids would stay up andwatch as they played, talked and sang,” recallsRodriguez, who studied classical flute andpiano from the age of eight in Cuba’s freeeducation system. “My mother would tell usto go to bed, which was fine except that ourbed was behind the piano.”

Less amusing, she continues, was thefamily’s extended musical jams, in which shewas left out: “I would try and elbow my wayinto these long descargas (jams) but therewere too many musicians with big talent andbig egos,” she says with a sigh. “My father wasaway a lot, and he didn’t give me much time. Istill try to impress him. I love him too much; ifhe wasn’t my dad I would have given up.”

To make matters worse, her flute belongedto her school. On graduating she was forced togive it back. “But I could sing. So I sang fortourists in big hotels in Havana, and in [thetourist resort] Varadero,” she says.

“When I came to Paris I did the same; I was amember of an all-girl salsa group, a vocalist ina Latin orchestra and a backing singer in[popular Latin fusion band] Sergent Garcia.

“But I missed the traditional rhythms of mycountry, the batá drums, the rumba, the son[Cuban genre of music], the stuff I’d listenedto since I was a baby. I was fed up with singingperfectly and not being acknowledged. Iwasn’t being true to myself. So I quit.”

A few weeks later, she encountered LaDame Blanche in Normandy. “Amazing, no?And now she – this character – is taking mearound the world. I cannot believe that I amgoing to be performing in Australia.” ●WOMADelaide is on March 8-11. Book tickets at womadelaide.com.au