Malaka are sisters Laurina and Sacha Moïsa, born in Guadeloupe and now based in Roanne in the Loire department, and they write and sing across French, English and Creole. Last year they shared “Ulo” featuring Flavia Coelho, the Brazilian singer who folds samba, forró and Jamaican reggae into her own records.
The song started out with just the two of them, and that version has its own video. They put the clip together “avec nos petites mains”, with their own little hands, mixing archive footage they shot in Guadeloupe with scenes of themselves making mango jam. The duet is the third of six tracks on Mang, the EP the sisters released through Green Piste Records last November. Coelho joined the song after Malaka opened for her in Mantes-la-Jolie, west of Paris, in May 2024. In August 2025, Putumayo, the Vermont label known for its round-the-world compilations, picked the single for its digital collection French Groove, three months before the EP came out.
“Ulo” is the Igbo word for home, and the sisters use it for the strength a woman finds in herself. The song opens as a love song, with a glimpse of someone’s face “enough to fall in love” and a wish for the two of them to become a couple. In the French verse the sisters turn to the woman herself, telling her to show how strong she is and to stand up to the people who never saw her.
On the recording, Laurina’s guitar and Timothée Faure’s drums and percussion roll the song along on an afrobeat lilt. Co-producers Hadrien Mabilat and Nathan Pinel, along with Yannick Le Seri, add bass, keyboards and programmed parts.
Listen to “Ulo” HERE and find Mang through THIS LINK