ABOUT US
WHO IS MAMA SAID?
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Driven by an American MC with a sharp flow and iginted by a singular instrumental crew, Mama Said unveils an urban rhapsody that chants the reflection of a turbulent world, through the lens of unifying exhilarating music.
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Mama Said draws on hip-hop and soul to express a sense of universal unease. The bilingual lyrics are an ode to sincerity, infused with humor and poetry. Catchy choruses and an infectious groove bond with the audience in an electrifying live experience.
At the eye of the cyclone, keyboards, cello, bass, trumpet, guitar, drums and samples form the raw material of this unbridled human adventure.
THE ENCOUNTER
After 15 years in the trenches of documentary cinema from the Israeli-Palestinian border to the Untouchables in India and in the social realities of minorities in the United States, Joshua delocalizes his research laboratory on stage. In 2022, after a meeting with the incredible musicians who today form Mama Said, it is on the European music scene that Joshua is now establishing himself. Their first hard-hitting track and eponymous clip “Don’t go away mad” released in 2024 confirms the power of the emergence of this urban fusion experience.
Mama Said exudes a poetry of frenetic tension, an incessant flow in free fall, and improbable encounter between Eminem and Noir Désir.
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ORIGINS
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Mama Said's repertoire is as diverse as the urban culture of its author: rhythm & blues, indie rock and soul are the identity of his plural American youth. As an emancipated street kid, Joshua dabbles in poverty, wealth and abandonment to the rhythm of the decadence of the American megapolises of the 90s. His texts bear witness to the violence of Los Angeles: shootings, evictions, the AIDS epidemic, crack, serial killers; the toxic enthusiasm of a delirious city in decline. Beyond this eventful and precarious childhood, the illiterate poet turns to a sort of literary irony: “talent is born in that uncomfortably familiar space where the rubber hits the road”. But far from depicting a gloomy world with acerbic phrases, the author draws his words from the sincerity of introspection, humor and self-deprecation:
“Life is too important a thing to be taken seriously,” as author G. K. Chesterton wrote.
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THE CREW
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Joshua Imeson | singer-song writer, guitar, lead singer
Anaïs Douat | cello, bass, singer
Guilhèm Artières | keyboard, trumpet
Victor Pol | drums
COURSE
Music venues : Paloma (Nîmes, 30), Victoire 2 (Montpellier, 34), Le Club (Rodez, 12), Les Docks (Cahors, 46), le Chapeau Rouge (Carcassonne 11), etc.
Shared concerts with : Deluxe, SoomT, La Chica, La Yegros, Amadou and Mariam, Highlight Tribe, Braindamage, Flavia Coelho, Cali, etc.
Festivals : Mirza Festival (46), Roots'ergue Festival (12), Vrai Repaire Festival (46), Mesclazik (12), les Résistantes (12), le Festival de Mourèze (34), Festival de Rocastel (34), Festival des sites et des son (12), etc.
Professionnal workshop with : Bajo el Mar, (31), Victoire 2 (34)
Scenes of national interest : the Jean Ferrat Theatre (Cabestany, 66), the Astrada (Marcillac, 32), The Théâtre des Deux Points (Rodez, 12), The Théâtre de la Maison du Peuple (Millau, 12).
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