“As a black artist, I took it for everyone.” Aya Nakamura looks back on her speech at the start of the Olympics.

The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games on July 26 provided a memorable spectacle for thousands of spectators and television viewers. Alongside Lady Gaga, Juliette Armani and Celine Dion, among others, Aya Nakamura took part in the magic of the evening, despite the heavy criticism she regularly faces. This August 26, a month after her performance, the singer returned to perform at A to live improvised on the TikTok social network.

“I didn’t know what the Olympics were”

“I never talked about it on social networks, but I didn’t expect it at all,” admitted the artist, referring to the controversy caused by the announcement of his possible participation in this opening. “It was me Chokbar (shocked, editor’s note). Because when I was asked to compete in the Olympics, I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know how much weight this event had. I didn’t tell myself. “If you do that, it’s crazy, the whole world will see you, etc.” I told myself that I will sing, there will be one more show and I will go home,” he explained. In addition to this wave of criticism and racist comments, the translator Jaja admitted to being surprised by the reaction of his peers. And with good reason, seeing themselves as more legitimate, a few artists like Matt Pokora or David Guetta openly complained that they hadn’t been contacted to perform on July 26th.

“Black Woman Caricature”

Aya Nakamura also took advantage of this live discussion with her fans to discuss the repeated attacks on her figure. “I’m black and I know there’s a lot of discrimination against us (black women, Editor’s note) but in all honesty, before I became a singer, I never had any strange comments about my body. Never,” he said. And continues. “It wasn’t until I found out that I started getting weird comments like, ‘You look like a boy.’ I think as a black female artist, I’ve been accepted for everybody,” she analyzed, evoking “the caricature of the black woman that some people saw [elle]”.

“We had a blast.”

Despite everything, the French artist most listened to abroad assured that he was “proud” of himself and his performance at the Pont des Arts. “I am happy. It’s another show that’s done,” he simply noted. “We had a blast. We really had fun with the Republican Guard during rehearsals. But I’m a little excited, so I didn’t realize the impact of this collaboration,” he admitted, however, explaining that he only realized the extent of it a few days later.