SANDRA ESPARON

Sandra Esparon (born May 15, 1989) is a Seychellois singer and music performer from Takamaka, Mahe. She voiced vocals in the 2005 hit single "San ou (La Rivière)" as a member of Seychellois music band Dezil'. Her career has seen her release three studio albums and receive multiple awards both locally and internationally.

A new age for Seychellois music came when the reggae-influenced San ou (La Rivière) by four-piece Dezil’, fronted by a 16-year-old Sandra Esparon, and produced by French electronic music pioneer Philippe Besombes became a smash hit in France in the summer of 2005.

The song climbed to No.2, spending 15 weeks in the Top 10, while the sun-drenched video was ubiquitous on French TV that year. Music was maintaining a cultural link between the former colonial power and its old possession, even if its sound came from somewhere else altogether.

Esparon has gone on to solo success, and not just in the Seychelles, gracing stages in France like the historic Casino de Paris and winning awards at the Les Voix de l’Océan Indien Awards held annually on French soil on Réunion.

But she has continued to embrace the sounds of the Caribbean, from zouk to ragga. When Esparon won Best Female Artist at the Seychelles’ Cable Tunes Awards in 2018, her male counterpart was Vincent Eliza, aka Mercenary, who made his debut in 2006 in a collaboration with Seychellois dancehall artist Jahrimba, but has since ranged over zouk, R&B and reggae, always sung in Creole.