Chapter 06
Songwriters Turn the Ocean Toward the Present
7 min
Seychelles popular music does not divide neatly into pioneers and youth. Patrick Victor still circulates beside new singles. Jany De Letourdie receives new recognition after decades of work. Antoinette Dodin records fresh moutya material. Sandra appears on current collaborations after an international teenage hit. Reggae artists borrow traditional signs, and heritage musicians use digital distribution. Time overlaps.
Patrick Victor writes tradition as a verb
Patrick Victor grew up hearing rehearsals by his grandfather's Anse Boileau Kamtole Band. He later sang with groups around Mahé and made his first recording in 1980. His best-known titles include Zwe Sa Lanmizik, Mon Pe Esper Ou, Premye Sesel Touzour Sesel, Valse Mon Pays and Tambour Moutya.
The range of those titles matters. A waltz can carry country feeling; a song can address the moutya drum; another can command people to play the music. Victor does not preserve culture by refusing composition. He writes new songs through inherited vocabulary, guitar craft and public advocacy.
Hear Zwe Sa Lanmizik for invitation. Its title makes music an action shared with listeners. Melody remains memorable enough for public participation while Creole words locate the appeal at home. The song's durability comes from use: people can sing it, programme it and recognize themselves inside its command.
David André, Jean-Marc Volcy and Joe Samy widen authorship
David André links performance, teaching and cultural leadership. His Mon anvi sant pou ou places singing itself inside an address to another person. His importance is not only institutional. A musician who teaches helps determine which techniques and values survive beyond one catalogue.
Jean-Marc Volcy modernizes Creole folk resources with an arranger's ear. Bake Yaya is a signature rhythmic work; Kil Pake carries cultural history into a song children can discuss; Bourzwa makes the boss and the problem of pay available to commentary; Moutya I En Medikaman treats the form as sustaining force. His work shows that tradition can be topical without becoming didactic.
Joe Samy writes with guitar, harmonica and an alert sense of national address. Mon pei byen eme belongs to a long line of songs through which Seychellois listeners hear country feeling in their own vocabulary. He has also worked in teaching, journalism and television. Such movement across media matters in a small music economy: the same person may write, perform, explain and help circulate a song.
Joseph Sinon follows another path. His albums combine sega, moutya and kanmtole with stories, moral choices, humour and collaborations. He has worked with singers including Elijah, Ruben, Joenise Juliette, Antoinette Dodin and others, and helped build projects from archived material. Comedy and music meet because both depend on timing, character and recognition.
Women shape every generation
The archive already contains women. Andrea Laporte sings Clémentine. Mrs Franset shares Faida with Dolfin Franset. Paquerette Labrosse performs Boner zamen fini with Ken Accouche. Marie Cécile Médor fronts The New Wreckers on Rende moi mon la liberté and later becomes part of radio's public voice. These credits prevent the false story in which women enter only after a male tradition is established.
Jany De Letourdie built a career across sega and ballad, Creole, French and English. Ding Ding Kololo carries an older phrase into her own recorded identity. Her collaboration with Mauritian group Cassiya shows regional exchange led by a Seychellois woman. Hall of Fame recognition at the 2025 Paradise FM Music Awards confirmed that her work remains public memory, not a closed period.
Antoinette Dodin began performing as a child and became known through songs such as Pti Tobi, Anzela and Ede Maler, pa ede Maler. Her 2024 album Pran Tou includes Moutya Dan Zil, Sega Dan Zil and songs about women, promises and speech. The album places traditional genre names beside a veteran woman's continuing authorship.
Sandra Esparon, from Takamaka on Mahé, sang with Dezil' on San ou (La Rivière). The 2005 hit reached a large French audience, proving that a Creole hook could cross the old colonial route without becoming French-language imitation. Her solo work later moved through zouk, ragga and R&B. On Annou Refix Li, Jahrimba features Sandra as a current collaborator; history returns through a new production, not nostalgia.
The 2016 compilation Fanm Seselwa gathered Jany, Antoinette, Sandra, Telsy, Lana, Tania, Tris, Gorgeous, Maria, Shanty, Mia and Danniah. Its organizers addressed a real imbalance in access to writing and production. Vocal talent alone does not guarantee control of songs, studio time or marketing. Listening responsibly means asking who wrote, arranged and produced, while still crediting the voice that gives a work its public life.
Reggae becomes Seychellois in the sentence
Reggae reached Seychelles through records, broadcasts, travel and the broad appeal of Rastafari thought. Its bass weight and offbeat guitar proved adaptable to Creole text. The genre offered a vocabulary for injustice, faith, romance and self-definition already central to local songwriting.
Jahrimba mixes roots reggae and dancehall with Seychellois sega energy. Zwer Leker places emotional risk inside a rhythmic delivery shaped for movement. Elijah, born Stephen Eliza and once known as Doctor Madman, developed from brash performance toward reggae, roots and traditional fusion. His humorous songs coexist with serious material. Bon Moman became a Paradise FM number one in 2025, showing the continued national power of a locally phrased reggae single.
Mercenary, Vincent Eliza, made his debut in the mid-2000s and built a catalogue across reggae, dancehall, conscious song, zouk and R&B. His eleventh album, Sorti Lwen, appeared in 2025 as his first fully live album. Recording work in Mauritius placed Seychellois authorship inside a regional studio route. Live instrumentation also gave his established voice a different bed from programmed dancehall production.
Reggae's local success does not mean Seychelles borrowed an identity whole from Jamaica. Creole sentence length changes placement. Local references change what a warning means. Sega and moutya accents can enter the percussion. Radio listeners decide which mixture feels convincing. The imported pattern becomes local through repeated choices.
Hip-hop, dancehall and pop argue at phone speed
Gunz, born Jim Hall, entered music through dance and freestyle rap. He belonged to Zanfan Move before establishing solo work. Fase brings together Seychellois hip-hop, movement and video. A small national market makes live visibility and quick digital circulation especially important.
Current charts move among names and styles without waiting for historians. Nouvo Ladres by Ambitious won Paradise FM's Tune of the Year 2024. At the end of 2025, Ase Koz Mon Non by Auspitious featuring veteran Philip Toussaint reached number one after only three weeks on the chart. The feature joins a newer artist to a singer whose career spans decades. In the same chart, acoustic memory, Christmas song, romantic duet and Elijah's reggae sat side by side.
Pop collaboration is a major form of authorship. One artist brings a verse, another a recognizable chorus, a producer supplies the rhythmic world, and a video creates the public image. Names such as Taniah, Sandra, Anna-Rose, Highness and Philip Toussaint appear as features that connect audiences. The grammar of “featuring” is part of the modern archipelago: voices travel between studios even when performers remain on one island.
Taniah also deserves to be heard as the centre of her own stage. At a 2025 Music Stadium concert in Victoria, she performed material from Vokalis, including Douler Lanmour, Boycott and Pa kit mwan tousel. In Douler Lanmour, her lead voice carries contemporary pop on its own terms; the wider live programme places her catalogue among collaborations without reducing her to a featured voice.
The present keeps moving
A current scene changes each week. Chart positions from December 2025 describe that month, not an eternal ranking. New singles arrive, and festival line-ups and venue schedules change. Dates keep each achievement in its proper moment without pretending the scene has stopped.
Current music still leaves clear records: titles, credited features, album names, broadcaster charts and artist catalogues. A song reached number one, an album was released, or a concert was announced. Those events speak more clearly than prediction or hype.
Across generations, Seychelles songwriters keep turning ocean routes toward local use. A contredanse becomes kanmtole. A Caribbean bass line carries Seselwa. A French-market hit returns with a Mahé voice at its centre. A Mauritius session supports a Seychellois live album. The archipelago is not waiting to be discovered. It is listening, answering and recording itself.
