Chapter 06
Cassiya, Menwar, Jazz and the Music Mauritius Makes Now
5 min
Cassiya made popular sega an ensemble spectacle
Cassiya formed in 1988 and built one of Mauritius's most durable popular catalogues. Désiré François's lead voice, Gérard Louis's songwriting and production, keyboards, electric guitars, bass, drum kit, percussion and brass expanded sega for large stages and diaspora audiences.
Rev nou ancétres joins ancestry to a chorus made for collective singing. Peser carries a different emotional weight. Le morne names a landscape inseparable from slavery and resistance while remaining a popular song rather than a museum narration. Danse morisien states the social invitation directly.
Cassiya's scale is part of the music. Audience memory, amplified low end and a horn line arriving over the rhythm create an experience that three percussionists alone would not.
A 2025 return lets musicians revise their own history
Nou Zistwar / Back in the Days, released in 2025, revisits material including Larzan Enn Bout Papier, Ici Kot Nu Été, Di Pain Griye, Separation, Narye Pa Efface and Rev Nou Ancetre. Detailed credits name singers, chorus, bass, drums, guitars, keyboards, percussion, saxophones, trombone and trumpet.
This is not simply a greatest-hits package. Older songs pass through current voices, recording technology and arrangement choices. The title announces that history is being retold by participants.
Compare the earlier Rev nou ancétres with the 2025 version. Notice tempo, vocal age, mix and the role of brass. Memory has a sound.
Menwar makes collaboration a method
Menwar's ravanne work links traditional technique to experiment. In the project Sagaï, electronic musician Loya studied and synthesised aspects of ravanne rhythm while Menwar performed voice and drum. Mon ravanne places the instrument inside a dialogue between acoustic touch and machine timing.
The collaboration does not claim that software becomes a ravanne. Its interest lies in mismatch: a sequenced pattern repeats exactly while skin, hand and breath vary. Ti Lélé makes that tension compact and memorable.
Menwar also appears on Thomas Brothers' Segabird alongside bassist Linley Marthe and drummers Mike Rajamahendra and Paco Sery. The ravanne enters jazz conversation without surrendering its attack.
Thomas Brothers hear sega through improvisation
The Thomas Brothers' Segazz, originally released in 2005 and reissued in 2024, joins Philippe Thomas on trumpet, Roger Thomas on bass and Lindsay Thomas on piano and keyboards with a wide group of collaborators. A Nou Al Zoué, Segazz, Zistwar and Segabird offer different balances of composed theme, groove and solo space.
Jazz here is not an imported badge of sophistication. Mauritian musicians use improvisation to reconsider familiar rhythmic material. A trumpet phrase can hover over ravanne rather than merely double a vocal hook. Bass can make the cycle elastic.
Hear Segazz before Segabird. The second track's star personnel become more meaningful after the core trio's language is clear.
Reggae now contains several Mauritian generations
Blakkayo emerged through Otentik Street Brothers and built a solo voice concerned with social justice, family and self-scrutiny. Kontrole from Soz Serye is a strong entry because the arrangement gives his rough vocal authority room. Mo Solo with Vergino shows another relational frame.
The Prophecy, formed in 2009, offers a smoother band route through Zis Souvenir, Tribulation, Laglwar, Mindset and Natty Grandi on Where We Belong. The singles Jah'O, Respe, Lamur Vre and Feeling carry the catalogue through 2026.
These artists need not be measured by proximity to Kaya. Their melodies, mixes and audiences show what Mauritian reggae became after seggae entered national memory.
Current does not mean a list of uploads
Mauritian music circulates through local video channels, digital releases, radio, diaspora events and concerts. The volume is high and credits are uneven. A view count cannot establish where an artist works or who wrote the song.
Use exact releases. The Prophecy's Feeling arrived in June 2026. Blakkayo's Sa em Ki Bez Ar Twa with Anonym appeared in December 2025. Cassiya's Nou Zistwar / Back in the Days is a 2025 album. Together they show different generations remaining active.
The wider present also includes AnneGa's Stories (2026), where Moontalk, Satya, English-language pop and titles drawn from several linguistic registers coexist inside one singer-songwriter project. Her 2026 regional SACEM emergence award reflects a career already built through releases such as Lorizon, Losean and Lor dilo. Ced Ric's LOFÉ! (2026) opens a very different urban route through Mauritian rap and digital-first production. Neither needs to be squeezed into the sega-reggae family tree to belong here.
Biswanee Deepooa's still-circulating Zumba adds current Bhojpuri authorship. Put beside AnneGa and Ced Ric, it reveals three different ideas of a contemporary audience: wedding and broadcast publics, an album-oriented singer-songwriter catalogue and rap assembled for fast digital circulation.
A current scene becomes credible when dates and people replace adjectives such as vibrant or thriving.
Current programmes make live differences audible
Port Louis, Rose Hill, Beau Bassin and other urban areas host theatres, clubs, festivals and public concerts. Caudan Arts Centre and the Institut Français de Maurice publish programmes spanning heritage projects, jazz, Indian Ocean collaboration and contemporary artists. Rodrigues requires its own current cultural calendar around Port Mathurin and community events.
A live arrangement may combine ravanne and triangle with programmed bass and drums, or place every part in visible hands. Listen for what that choice permits: a percussionist may lengthen a turnaround when dancers answer, while a fixed sequence asks the singer to manage excitement inside exact boundaries. Current programmes reveal these differences more clearly than a permanent list of venues.
