The China Mail - Belgium's Angele delivers French lesson with Coachella set

She's no stranger to big crowds, but playing the desert event that traditionally kicks off the summer tour circuit is next level for the 27-year-old from Belgium, who has collaborated with the likes of Dua Lipa and broken records previously set by Stromae.

"I'm overwhelmed," she told AFP prior to her performance Friday night, smiling and sipping tea, a pink bandana knotted casually over her free-flowing blonde hair.

"But I'm also very excited and was even a bit emotional this morning," she said in English. "When I woke up, I felt like okay, this is really happening?"

The artist born Angele Van Laeken to a singer and an actor got her start playing cafes around Brussels, having learned piano from an early age and getting a jazz education at Jazz Studio Antwerp.

She began gaining attention online before the release of her chart-topping breakout single "Tout oublier."

Angele then earned acclaim for 2019's "Balance ton quoi," a reference to France's #MeToo movement "Balance ton porc."

She said the message of feminism is still as important as ever in a society that often sidelines women in favor of men, including in the music industry.

"I think the whole society is not equal yet -- so of course the music is not equal," she said.

- Language-fluid -

As her star rises, Angele says she's finally starting to feel comfortable: "I don't feel like I don't fit in."

She donned natural makeup and a simple plaid mini-dress with pink Crocs in the hours before her set -- only her disco silver nails teased the show to come.

Wearing a sparkling silver bikini top and matching skirt, she bopped through a high-energy set of her jazz-inflected electro-pop as tightly choreographed dancers set the beat.

And she was welcomed by hordes of music lovers swaying along, many of them encountering her work for the first time.

For Angele, that's the best part of playing abroad: "It's actually less stressful than in France" where people "know who I am, and I can have something to prove to them."

"But when I come here, I feel like I'm more free... to be who I am," she continued. "To sing how I want to sing, and to just behave, not thinking about what do they think, or am I going to get bullied on the internet."

"People just want to see me because it's the first time."

She even added a bit of French instruction to her Coachella show, with lyrics written out on a projection behind her as she performed.

Angele says music is how she learned English in the first place, but that she feels most at home writing in her native French -- for now.

"I obviously do love to sing in English but when it comes to writing, it's so different," she said. "I feel like I've found my way to express myself in my language, and I really feel connected to my songs whenever it's in French."

"But I like to mix the languages," Angele said -- a fitting sentiment for a multilingual pop star in an increasingly globalized pop landscape, whose primetime billing at Coachella is part of the festival's most international lineup to date.

"People really do listen to French and French songs!"

N.Wan--ThChM