Yael Naim

Yael Naïm, a singer and songwriter born to Jewish and Tunisian parents, arrived in Paris in 1978. After moving to Tel Aviv at age four, she developed an early affinity for pop through the Beatles and later absorbed the styles of Aretha Franklin and Joni Mitchell. Performances alongside musicians from Winton Marsalis’s band took place there, and during her mandatory Israeli military service she launched her first group, the Anti-Collision. A 2000 charity-concert appearance led to a contract with EMI; she also portrayed Miriam in a French staging of The Ten Commandments before cutting her debut album on both American coasts. Titled In a Man’s Womb, the record left Naïm deeply dissatisfied, prompting a period of purely commercial singing until 2004, when she encountered West Indian percussionist David Donatien. Their partnership restored her creative drive and produced the 2007 album Yael Naïm, issued that October with tracks in French, English, and Hebrew, including a cover of Britney Spears’s “Toxic.” The release climbed to number 11 in France and the top forty in Switzerland; the following year “New Soul” appeared in an Apple MacBook Air commercial.