Get Inspired, Follow Your Destiny

• Female rapper, singer and songwriter from 3 cities across the globe: Manila, Toronto, and Nice.
• Upcoming hip hop-jazz-r&b-funk album called Stop & Think.
• Offering a rare point of view, intended to open your eyes, mind, heart and give you hope.
• Backed by 3 incredibly talented French musicians, the album is set to be released one single at a time, with insights from the artist, here on this website.

As she’s left her teaching career behind to follow her destiny and move back to her motherland, Jillian Fersancourt, a.k.a French Manilla is finally ready to share with you her music album that she had been working on for the past decade while living on the French Mediterranean coast.

                                                                                                                                                                    It is a collection of songs that reflect her outlook on life, so far, having lived in Southeast Asia, North America and Europe, and now doing a full circle by moving back to where she was born. It is from this vantage that she shares with you her observations that she has carefully crafted into songs; part of which, were written many years ago, on beats made by her then, future husband. A little later on, they met musicians who would become their very good friends. Live instruments added another dimension to her style, and they decided to hand over all their raw songs to the percussionist who is also a multi-instrumentalist and an accomplished producer.  Once the new mixes were finished, there was definitely a coherent style that revealed itself and it seemed fitting to call it French Manilla.

Born in Manila, her childhood was shaped in the busy streets filled with sounds of her mother tongue (Filipino) and loud Jeepneys. At a tender age, her family moved to Toronto, a multicultural city that has allowed her to connect with people from all over the world, long before the prominence of social media. But being a young immigrant then, she admits that there were culture shocks that she inevitably had to deal with when she reached adolescence. To have a coherent understanding of her surroundings and all the changes, she turned to poetry for self-reflection, using the English language as her main mode of expression. She fell in love with hip hop listening to Wu-Tang, Tribe Called Quest, The Roots, Common, Lauryn Hill, etc. appreciating the beats, flow and lyrics of these artists who opened her mind and helped her with her quest of knowledge of self. She gives credit to Toronto for opening her up to this culture.

Moving through 3 different cultures, languages and environment, an alarming concern that has stood out for her is the consumerism that has become prevalent in all these places. To her, “…consumerism has been a main distraction that has stunted our creativity as a society”. She wishes for people to “Stop & Think” (title of her album) about what they are consuming, that we don’t all have to buy the same stuff as everybody else, or buy from brands that we know nothing about. She started Consumers Vote with her husband to help people become aware of what they are consuming, the impacts of these purchases and what we can do about it.

As she prepares for her next chapter in life, settling down at a permaculture farm she envisions cultivating in the Philippines, finding a balance between the modern and the ancient world, she shares with you her album. It is an introduction to understanding her journey, which could help you understand yours. Here, she invites you to learn together with her, about following a destiny that’s calling her, hoping it can inspire you to follow yours!