On March 23, 2022, Nani Vazana released her song “Una Segunda Piel” (“A Second Skin”). For the Judeo-Spanish community, her music has great significance, uniting and enriching the culture of Sephardic Jews. What makes Vazana a unique artist is the endangered language in which she sings: Ladino. Ladino originated in Spain from Old Castilian, spreading across Europe and eventually to South America following the expulsion of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula in the fifteenth century. Vazana breathes life back into her ancient language through her art. 

Vazana was born in Israel on November 9, 1982, although her family was originally from Morocco. Her father, in an effort to start a new life, made sure that the Ladino language was not spoken in his household. Vazana resorted to learning it in secret from her grandmother, who sang to her. Upon travelling back to Morocco later in life, she heard Ladino at a jazz festival and decided to begin creating her own music, eventually dedicating “Una Segunda Piel” to her father, who had tried and failed to prevent her from connecting with her ancestral roots. The song tells the story of a Sephardic ritual, a ceremony “where your family [and] friends sow around [you] the shroud of the dead” and  “[y]ou lie down in a cocoon, meditate…[t]hen you're reborn, as if shedding [your] skin.” 

Vazana’s goal as an artist is to modernize Ladino through themes in her lyrics that touch the hearts of Sephardic Jews and others. The content of her music speaks to issues such as gender equality, empowerment, and migration. Her advocacy of such causes, paired with her powerful voice, garnered the attention of critics; in 2024, she won the Liet International music competition, designed to give a stage to songs in minority or regional languages. 

Sources: 

Nani Vazana, “Homegrown plus: Ladino Songs with Nani Noam Vazana: Folklife Today,” interview by Stephen Winick, The Library of Congress, February 21, 2024, https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2024/02/homegrown-plus-ladino-songs-with-nani-noam-vazana#:~:text=Vazana%20is%20one%20of%20the,Africa%2C%20Greece%2C%20and%20Turkey.  

Nani Vazana, “Nani Noam Vazana - Interview,” interview by Lisa Torem, Pennyblackmusic, August 30, 2023, https://pennyblackmusic.co.uk/Home/Details?id=27822.