Featured Artist: Petite Meller
Ella Downing | 5th July 2015
Photo Credit: Facebook
The name Petite Meller probably doesn’t ring many bells to most but her hit single, ‘Baby Love’, probably does. It’s an electric mix of giddy, jazzy, disco pop that’s irresistibly catchy and has been extensively played on Radio 1. But who is the woman behind the hit? Petite is a French singer/songwriter and Philosophy masters student signed to major record label Island Records. But it’s fair to say she’s not your traditional pop star. 10 seconds in to the Baby Love video and you can already tell this is something cut from a different cloth. At first glance it’s a crazy pale lady thriving about with not much on amongst lots of enthused Kenyans. But maybe she’s on to something…
Meller seems to challenge and test social boundaries and norms. Her videos play with contradicting themes including violence, age, cultural appropriation and femininity. For instance, her appearance has been considered infantile with her rouged cheeks, baby blonde hair and girlish style yet she contrasts this with her skimpy outfits and raunchy dance moves. Furthermore, the inspiration for the Baby Love video was the tragic story of the kidnapping of girls in Nigeria and how Meller aligned their heartbreak with the heartbreak represented in the song. Yet the video is far from despairing presenting a stark contrast.
Even if we don’t really understand Meller at this point, this doesn’t seem to matter. It’s clear this woman is challenging much more than our ears with her music. She isn’t your typical avant-garde performer, those artists who scream ‘LOOK AT ME I’M DOING SOMETHING WEIRD AND DIFFERENT!’ like Madonna, Kanye or GaGa. Rather she has created this bizarre act without becoming the direct source of it. Her videos are collections of scenes where she is present rather than scenes that focus on her presence.
And for those of you who don’t really care about hidden meanings, challenged conceptions, or anything I’ve just said you can’t deny that Petite Meller ultimately delivers a damn good pop song.