Crossing genres, and a continent, Lotus attendees present in the Ivy Tech/Old National tent on 4th Street Saturday night around 10 pm were witness to another connection being made, when singer Christine Salem, from the French overseas department of La Réunion, an island near Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, invited local jazz singer Janiece Jaffe to the stage.

Several delighted fans hoisted the petite blonde chanteuse to the platform to take her place alongside the controversial Salem, who sings maloya, songs that originated with the slaves who worked La Réunion’s sugar plantations. Maloya, traditionally used in drumming and chanting ceremonies in which participants enter a trance-like state that allows them to see their ancestors, were banned until 1981.

Before an ecstatic crowd, Jaffe joined Salem in an a cappella song about Nelson Mandela, and freedom. You may hear their performance using the player above.

The singers had met on the street the evening before, when Jaffe’s daughter Selena, a French speaker who has lived in Corsica, was serving as Salem’s interpreter.