Zily

Born in Tsingoni, Mayotte, Amida Zily developed her singing practice early on through the debaa and, more broadly, traditional Mahoran repertoires that she learned as a child. After joining the group Fleurs d’Ylang from 2009—within a context tied to large weddings and local stages—Zily steered her career toward a more personal songwriting approach. Spotted at the Grand Casting de Mayotte in 2014, she went on to work on fusing Mahoran singing with pop, R&B and electronic textures while retaining melodic and vocal foundations from the tradition. Tracks such as “Tsika,” “Amani” and “Moina Bibi” accompany this shift toward a wider aesthetic conceived between Mayotte and other dissemination spaces in the Indian Ocean. In 2020 Zily founded the label Yeka Music to structure this new phase. Her first EP, Imani na Amani, was released in 2022 and gathers nine tracks. She subsequently performed on various stages outside Mayotte, notably in Paris, at the Visa For Music festival in Rabat and at Sauti Za Busara in Zanzibar. In 2024 her artistic journey was also the subject of the documentary Ndzozi, les rêves de Zily.