“My name is Zap Mama — it’s easy to understand that it’s easy for me to zap in from one instrument to another, a culture, a style," says Marie Daulne, who plays Saturday in Newport.

Jurgen Rogiers Jurgen Rogiers

When Zap Mama released their first album, 1993’s Adventures in Afropea I, they were a European-based, all-female a cappella quintet that put together musical traditions from all over the world, concentrating on the Pygmy vocal traditions that founder Marie Daulne, who lives in Belgium, rediscovered when she returned to the Congo in her 20s.

Zap Mama’s latest album, Supermoon, was released in June and it’s a sleek collection of funk, soul and pop that includes a full band and centers on Daulne’s singing and songwriting. It’s not a sudden shift; the trend toward instruments and a lead voice began with their second album. But Daulne says Supermoon is the latest step in her musical journey.

“It was easy,” Daulne says; “it was like following the evolution. It needed to be this way. …

“I’m a nomad. I like to discover my sound with different instruments, different genres. For me it’s normal. My name is Zap Mama – it’s easy to understand that it’s easy for me to zap in from one instrument to another, a culture, a style. I’m more a citizen of the world, not an American or Belgian. … I can have very, very close friends in the United States and have neighbors I have nothing to do with. I’m not nationalist.”

Zap Mama now travels with three singers, electric and acoustic guitars, bass, keyboards, drums, percussion and a DJ. “I met a lot of instrumentalists who started playing with us [one by one],” Daulne says, and eventually they composed a band.

Daulne says that the songwriting process for Supermoon began when her best friend died several years ago: “This sadness [brought] me very deep. I didn’t know how far the sadness can be. So heavy to carry. And that’s opened up a lot of other doors. The way you think, the way you live.”

Daulne says she wrote 37 songs for the record, and chose the best individual songs instead of collecting songs around a unifying theme, “but it seems the humanistic message is part of every lyric. What is the definition of being a human being? To help each other, or fighting each other for the religion or a nation? … There are a thousand ways to be and to feel.”

Songs include the title track, an appeal for people to recognize their own value in an age of celebrity; “Hey Brotha,” a call for respect between the sexes; “Go Boy,” about the struggles of immigration; and “New Step” and “Princess Kesia,” about Daulne’s daughter’s passage into the teenage years.

“The life is fantastic, hard, all the cycles we pass through. And I would like to share.” It’s easier for Daulne to share these days, “as I have better English now than before. I can write lyrics in English now. That’s a difference – that people will understand my philosophy.”

And while a festival show is a scaled-down affair, in the usual Zap Mama show, Daulne says, “I like to give the audience a maximum of visuals. If they come they won’t [just] listen to the album. … I think live is more important than just playing music, for me. I like to give so much, and in exchange, ask people to sing with me, to dance, to be exciting, and go back home with a lot of joy and a new [desire] to keep the positive life.”

In a brief conversation, Daulne uses the words “funky” and “joy” a lot. “Funky was always there,” she says of all of Zap Mama’s changes through the years. “Funky not for the style, the beat, but for the happiness and the joy, that was there even when I was a cappella. That was always there.”

There’s that word “joy” again. It sounds like, though many different arrangements, musical styles and languages, that’s the real common thread.

“Definitely!”

Zap Mama plays on the main stage on Saturday.

rmassimo@projo.com