Canadian Musician November / December 2019 | Page 42

DOMINIQUE FILS-AIMÉ Looking Back to Blaze Forward BY ANDREW KING “I believe everyone that wants to create, can cre- ate,” asserts Dominique Fils-Aimé – an idea that has come to define her artistic identity and sub- sequent career trajectory. The quote comes from a discus- sion with Canadian Musician about her formative years as a songwriter which, as might be surprising to those familiar with her magnificent 2019 sophomore LP, Stay Tuned!, weren’t all that long ago. The era-blurring and genre-bend- ing artist first came to prominence on the third season of La Voix – Quebec’s highly-touted version of internation- 42 CANADIAN MUSICIAN al TV franchise The Voice – in early 2015. At the time the show’s produc- ers came knocking, she was working as a psychologist and making music on the side with no aspirations of becoming a professional musician. Of course, that would soon change. “Going so far in the contest caught me off-guard and I thought, ‘OK, people really can relate to me,” she told the Montreal Gazette earlier this year. “You don’t need training; you just need to mean it for people to feel you.” She dropped a four-song EP – her first collection of original music – later in 2015 and, in just the few years since, has established herself as a one-of-a-kind fixture of Cana- da’s cultural landscape. A big part of that recognition stems from the ambitious concept behind her output since that debut EP. Fils-Aimé’s first three full-length collections comprise a trilogy that explores and celebrates the history of Afro-American music and culture. Nameless, released in February 2018, is the first of the three, and encompasses weighty themes of identity, struggle, and resilience with a minimalist musical backdrop based on work songs and early iterations of the blues. A year later, she dropped Stay Tuned!, a more sonically-expansive ef-