By Yannick Mutombo
Easter, Passover, and Ramadan only intersect every 30 years or so. I marked the occasion by spending Easter weekend at my parents’ home in suburban Stittsville, away from my scarcely furnished one-bedroom apartment off Elgin in Centretown. Christmas was the last holiday all four siblings were together, so my parents indulged us with a cheerier-than-usual demeanour. They were perfectly compliant when I asked if they could please be quiet between four and five on Saturday afternoon—the time Anaïs Cardot and I agreed to speak through Google Meet.
Anaïs Cardot. Photo: Nicolas Babin.
She was late by about 30 minutes. Then she finally logged on—profusely apologetic, having left her phone in the other room while she bantered with her siblings and best friend, not noticing the time. I shooed my brother away from the dining room table so we could get down to business.
See, Cardot is no diva. She possesses the vocal prowess of one, yet her nature is modest and down-to-earth. In September 2022, the Blue Crane Agency contacted Cardot with an opportunity to perform at the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame Awards in Toronto. She was in Paris at the time and had to turn it down. Still, they kept in touch with her manager until the opportunity to play the National Arts Centre Fourth Stage came about.
“It just came at the perfect time,” she says. “I think it was luck because I really didn’t expect it. I remember when my manager told me, I was like, ‘the NAC—are you sure?’ Because he’s not from Ottawa. That’s pretty much how it ended up happening.”
Cardot’s stardom grew substantially throughout the pandemic. Sitting just shy of 90,000 TikTok followers, she is one of many budding musicians making use of today’s democratic media landscape–the great digital equalizer–though she wouldn’t have blown up if not for her friend Judy encouraging Cardot to overcome her reluctance to join the platform. Despite TikTok’s unprecedented ability to propel users to seemingly instant fame, Cardot remains humble about her experience, citing sheer luck combined with the app’s robust algorithm for her success. For this reason, she says she is “less invested” in her TikTok visibility, though she appreciates how it helped advance her career.
“It’s how I got to meet my manager, and one of my producers that I’ve been working with this whole time. I got to be reposted by a few of my favorite artists like H.E.R. and Masego.”
To her online fans, she is an aspiring female songstress with a faint, albeit distinct, accent (French is her first language) whose melodic runs rival the feats of Lolo Zouaï and Sabrina Claudio. To those like me, who first encountered her on the University of Ottawa campus, she is the French-Gabonese girl with the curly mane and toothy grin, confident and disabled (these terms are not antithetical to each other). By the time I graduated in June of 2022, she was contemplating dropping out to pursue a career in music, having already amassed 20,000 Instagram followers.
She nearly followed through after a tumultuous 2021—losing her sister and aunt within two months left her feeling incredibly depressed. In search of a sign, she asked her late father for guidance: “I heard my dad in a dream with my great-great-great grandmother. She was like, have you seen that your daughter’s making music? And he’s like, yeah, but she should finish school. I was like, bro, even here! So, I woke up. And so many good things happened to me that day. I remember my manager sent me a message out of nowhere. He usually never does that, but it was like, I know you’re going through a lot—know that I’m always going to be here. He sends me the nicest messages ever, which is something that I really needed.”
The song of hers I enjoy the most is “Crazy for You,” a soft and hazy bedroom-pop number. Her vocals are dreamlike and airy; the lyrics glisten with the prudent obsession of a hopeless romantic standing on the verge of passion, or restraint. As I write this, it has over 26,000 plays on Spotify. On March 31, Cardot dropped her latest single, “Can’t Explain,” a sultry R&B piano ballad she wrote the melody to in November 2020.
“I was getting better at playing the guitar, so I was always jamming in my room. And I was really in a weird phase. And so it was me dealing with not being able to explain my feelings to someone I was talking to.” Clocking in at just over two minutes, the track is an amuse-bouche for Cardot’s upcoming debut project, featuring songs in English, French, and Portuguese.
Time rarely stops long enough for anyone to calculate whether their aspirations are worth the pursuit, but the slightest hesitation renders it impossible to decide if waiting for another second will yield–or delay–the winning hand. In the face of uncertainty, Cardot is prepared for the worst while expecting the best. This past Thursday, she completed her last day at the U of O, having transferred to the Faculty of Arts to fast-track her graduation. With a fully recorded EP on deck, Cardot is finally ready to face the music.
“I’ve been trying to grow as a person and as an artist. I’m trying to advocate more for [people with] disabilities because it’s a huge thing that people take for granted. I have a lot to tell.”
Anaïs Cardot headlines the NAC Fourth Stage on Friday, April 14 at 8:30pm. Tickets can be purchased here for $15.
.gif)
