Axelle Red biography Nowadays a committed artist and a militant humanist, back in 1993 Axelle graduates from the VUB as a lawyer, the same year her first album ‘Sans Plus Attendre’ is released which immediately results in her breaking in France, Switzerland, Canada and Belgium, where sales alone amount to more than 200,000. Her soul album, ‘A Tâtons’, recorded in 1996 in Memphis with legendary musicians from the Stax label, including Steve Cropper and Isaac Hayes, is a real eye-opener. Axelle receives an IFPI platinum award for sales of more than 1 million and a year later, she’s selling out the Paris Olympia for the first time. Since 1997 Axelle has been an ambassador for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) standing up for the rights of children and women in war-torn regions and developing countries. That same year she devotes herself to the Ottawa convention against land mines and in the poverty-stricken Haiti; she comes face to face with children who have been imprisoned in miserable conditions without any trial. In 1998 Axelle marries, sings the official hymn, ‘La Cour des Grands’, with Youssou N’Dour in front of a few billion television viewers at the opening ceremony of the Football World Cup in the Stade de France in Paris. 7 months pregnant from her daughter, Janelle, in her shows devoted to soul and rhythm and blues she’s joined by her heroes, Wilson Pickett, Sam Moore, Eddy Floyd, Percy Sledge and Ann Peebles. Anyone lucky enough to have been at Antwerp’s Sports Palace or Paris’ Palais des Congrès will certainly never forget those memorable shows. Axelle is one of the people who gets behind Amnesty International’s grand benefit concert in Paris although, under doctor’s orders, 7 months pregnant, she’s advised not to perform herself. That same year sees the release of her Spanish album, ‘Con Solo Pensarlo’. In 1999, Axelle receives the most important music award in France for female artist of the year, the Victoire de la Musique, while her third studio album, ‘Toujours Moi’, is also released, written and produced by herself. It only further confirms her success with sales of more than 800,000 albums. Once again, she returns to Asia where she had travelled extensively as a student. In Laos, one of the poorest Asiatic countries, Thailand and Cambodia she meets women and children whose lives are a never-ending circle of violence, discrimination, prostitution and poverty. Axelle’s stinging words still ring through. ‘If I or my daughter had been born here then we wouldn’t be alive today’. After more than 400 concerts, 2000 sees the recording of her first live album and DVD during her French tour, ‘Alive’. In 2002 her fourth studio album, ‘Face A / Face B’, is released. The title refers to the vinyl records labelled ‘fast and slow’ side from the sixties (an up-tempo side for dancing and a ballad side for slows) – it’s a co-production with producer Al Stone (Jamiroquai, Bjork,…). Axelle’s subject matter reflects her strong commitments covering extremism, anti-globalisation, anti-personnel mines, child soldiers and drugs. The result of her experiences in the field. Axelle returns to Cambodia as part of the campaign against antipersonnel mines, then arrives in the Mexican city of Chiapas right in the middle of a Zapatista demonstration about the rights of the indigenous population and further visits a handicap International project in Vietnam. In 2003, her second daughter, Gloria, is born. A CD box is also released comprising 3 CDs with numerous previously unreleased tracks such as duets with Charles Aznavour, Francis Cabrel, Stephan Eicher, Sylvie Vartan, Arno and Tom Barman. Her duet with Renaud, ‘Manhattan-Kaboul’, has the most airplay in France that year and notches up sales of more than 800,000 singles, for which Axelle and Renaud receive an NRJ music award at Midem in Cannes. After being forced to flee the riots in June 2004 in Congo, Axelle campaigns in July of that year in Niger with UNICEF against female circumcision and child marriages. ‘French Soul’, a first ‘Best Of’ is released with two previously unreleased songs ‘I Have A Dream’ and ‘J’ai Fait Un Rêve’, a homage to Martin Luther King. Axelle directs the two videos herself. Pregnant from a third daughter, Billie, she ends the year with a lightning visit to Sri Lanka with Unicef emergency aid for the people who’d been hit so badly by the tsunami. In 2005, Axelle travels to the north of Senegal for the French Oxfam/Agir Ici’s campaign, ‘Make noise till Hong Kong’. She speaks up for honest trade prices. In May, she joins Peter Gabriel and Youssou N’Dour at the Geneva concert on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the United Nations, at which Axelle is thanked by Kofi Annan for her humanitarian work with the various NGOs. Together with Bob Geldof, she is also the spokesperson for ‘Live 8 in France’ and performs on 2 July 2005 at the Palace of Versailles in front of 200,000 people during the benefit. At the European summit, Axelle officially asks Barroso, chairman of the European Commission, to increase the budget for the development of the Third World countries. 2006 sees the release of ‘Jardin Secret’, Axelle’s fifth studio album, a story of hope, optimism and positive thinking. Fleeing to a personal utopian world as a reaction to the pessimism in the world. The tracks are recorded in Willie Mitchell’s legendary Royal studios in Memphis (where Al Green and Ann Peebles recorded all their albums). In September 2006, Axelle receives the highest artistic honour, becoming ‘Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres’, presented to her by the French minister of culture, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres. She also takes part in the 0110 concerts against intolerance and racism in Antwerp and Brussels. In 2007 Axelle visits poverty-stricken Sierra Leone for the Unicef campaign ‘Together, saving 4 million babies’, five years after the terrible civil war. Sierra Leone has the largest child mortality in the world. Genital mutilation of girls and violent ill-treatment of women are still a matter of course. In March 2007, Axelle is speaks at the FIFDH (International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights) in Geneva together with the Cambodian director, Rithy Panh, during a debate on prostitution. In December 2007 King Albert II presents her with the medal of ‘Commandeur in de Kroonorde’ for her social commitment. In May 2008, the University of Hasselt awards Axelle the honorary title of ‘Doctor Honoris Causa’ for her social commitment as an artist and human rights’ activist. On the occasion of International Women’s Day, Axelle is guest speaker at the Council of Europe during a debate on ‘domestic violence’. She also writes her first album in English, ‘Sisters & Empathy’, and records it with her regular musicians, Michael Toles and Lester Snell from Memphis and Jeff Anderson and Damon Duewhite from New York. However, this album sees Belgian musicians Mauro Pawlowski, Tom Barman, Jeffrey Burton en Steven Debruyn also collaborating.