Aziza Brahim: Próximos conciertos

Aziza Brahim en la Agenda Zaragoza 2015

Aziza Brahim en concierto

Presentación de "Soutak" el 26 de febrero a las 22:30h en Huesca

"Soutak" is #1 album in World Music Charts of the years 2014!

I am deeply honored that my album 'Soutak' is #1 in World Music Charts of the year 2014! Thanks to all of you, my dear friends! Together we can make this world a better place.

Yours, Aziza
THANK YOU!

Grabación en directo de Aziza Brahim, Rasa, Utrecht, 18 de Octubre

Sahara Soul review – the true spirit of the desert

Barbican, London
Some of West Africa’s top musical talent throw an easy-going desert party, while headliner Aziza Brahim paid moving tribute to the region’s troubles

                 Cool, stately and soulful … Aziza Brahim. Photograph: Philip Ryalls/Redferns

 This concert – a celebration of west African music – is a good reminder of the troubled Sahara region’s diverse and inspiring talent. Last year’s inaugural event concentrated on Mali, but this intriguing event was broader in scope and attracted an impressive crowd, even though few of the musicians are known to British audiences.

Born in in the desolate Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria and now based in Barcelona, headliner Aziza Brahim uses her songs to bring attention to one of Africa’s forgotten tragedies. Playing hand drums and backed by a band dominated by Spanish acoustic guitarists, who brought a flamenco and jazz edge to her Sahrawi rhythms, she gave a cool, stately and soulful set that began with Gdeim Izik, an angry protest about disputed Western Sahara.
From further south, in Mauritania, there was an impressive appearance from Noura Mint Seymali. She comes from a celebrated griot family, and played the ardine harp, typically reserved by female musicians. She has shaken up traditional styles with help from her husband, Jeiche Ould Chighaly, who accompanied her with furious and bluesy improvised electric guitar. There was another rousing British debut from Nabil Baly Othmani, a Tuareg from southern Algeria who plays the oud, and whose laid-back songs often rose to a furious crescendo.
The concert opened with an historic Tuareg supergroup, as the Malian Tartit band were joined by Othmani and members of Tamikrest, Terakaft and Tinariwen. The result was like an easy-going party in the desert, with female drummers and singers joined by slinky instrumental work from the male guitarists, and the session ending with some furious dancing. This was the true spirit of the Sahara, so it was unfortunate that the show ran long, meaning they didn’t return for the expected grand finale.

 Robin Denselow

 The Guardian, Monday 29 September 2014 15.25 BST

Aziza Brahim in session for World on 3

The Voice Of A Nation (BBC Africa Beats)

Africa Beats seeks out the most innovative and interesting up and coming musicians from the continent, and Aziza Brahim was chosen because of her beautiful fusing of traditional Saharawi vocal style.

Aziza Brahim uses her compelling voice to draw the world's attention to the ongoing plight of her people. Her fourth album Soutak (your voice) was released earlier this year to high acclaim.

Check out our website:http://www.bbcafrica.com

Musique (F)

Aziza Brahim en concierto

WMCE

¡Soutak esta en el  número 6 de la WMCE . Muchas gracias!

 

Aziza Brahim en Vrije Geluiden VPRO

Entrevista y actuación en el programa Vrije Geluiden de la televisión pública holandesa VPRO

 Aziza Brahim is de stem van de Westelijke Sahara, een land dat door Marokko is geannexeerd. In haar muziek zingt ze over hoop en vrijheid. Met haar album 'Soutak', op nummer 1 in de World Music Charts Europe, breekt ze nu ook internationaal door.

Review of my album 'Soutak' from Amadeus (Italy).

"An amazing album that is winning many admirers throughout Europe."

Number One at WMCE

Soutak  is number one in the WMCE for the third month in a row! Thank you very much!

¡Soutak es número uno de la WMCE por tercer mes consecutivo! Muchas gracias!

Aziza Brahim - Julud - Later... with Jools Holland - BBC Two

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006ml0l

The incredible Aziza Brahim in session for Cerys on 6.

Sahrawi singer Aziza Brahim is in session off the back of her recent album Soutak.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01y2m82

Number One at WMCE

"Soutak", mi último álbum, continúa en el número uno de 'World Music Charts Europe', por segundo mes consecutivo. Gracias al sello Glitterbeat y a todos vosotros por vuestro apoyo.

http://www.wmce.de/index.html 

New Internationalist Magazine reviews Soutak

" Aziza Brahim is a powerful voice not only for the Sahrawi cause but also for her people’s traditional music ... Songs such as ‘Julud’, dedicated to a mother (and motherland), ‘Lagi’ (‘Refugee’) and ‘La Palabra’ (‘The Word’) bring a new range of empathy and softness to this arresting album." ★★★★★

 

Bringing the songs of Western Sahara to the world

Aziza Brahim, singer and refugee, is bringing the songs of Western Sahara to the world

“My strongest influence will always be the haul: the traditional sound of the Western Sahara,” says Aziza Brahim. But while the singer is keen to draw attention to the themes of personal and collective identity that run throughout her work, she is equally happy to recognise an even deeper connection between all her inspirations.

“I listen to lots of different styles of music from lots of different places: Africa, Europe, the United States and the Arab world, because I’m interested in roots.” This simple statement makes a lot of sense, especially when one pauses to consider Brahim’s own story. She was born in 1976 in a refugee camp in Algeria that her mother fled to during the early days of the continuing Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara. She never met her father, who died during the Western Sahara war, and it was in those camps that she first displayed a talent for music.
In 1995, Brahim won a song contest that drew artists from all over the partially recognised state of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, then joined the National Sahrawi Music Group. Since then, she has struck out on her own and recorded four increasingly acclaimed solo albums. The most recent, Soutak – out now on the German Glitterbeat label – shows her voice at its powerful, emotive best and is bringing her work to a growing audience.
“I’ve always focused my lyrics on the history and struggle of my people,” Brahim says. “Music is very important in the Sahrawi culture. A vital part of our cultural legacy is oral, not written. Music is a base for much of our poetry and many of our stories. It can be used as a means of resistance, but also a way of coming together. At every party – weddings, celebrations and religious events – it is always present. It’s something that we need.” While the respective plights of certain other stateless communities are widely reported in the global media, the Sahrawi are rarely discussed. As a public figure from the Western Sahara, this frequently forces Brahim to act as a de facto ambassador for her people. While this is undoubtedly a considerable responsibility for any artist, she appears content with the role and comfortable with the obligations this places on her music.
“It’s an old conversation,” Brahim says. “Making art in the service of a cause … For myself, I am just glad to be in a position where I can make people aware of the situation of the Sahrawi people. My songs talk about those issues because I can’t do anything else. When I express the concerns of my people through my music, I am also expressing my own concerns.
“Personal experience is very important in my work, but I am also part of a wider society. I belong to an occupied country – my people have been exiled and in refugee camps for nearly 40 years, my homeland is filled with landmines and families have been separated. The international community may be able to sit back and watch this happen but I can’t do the same. I want to talk about these things, but it is important to me to not only write and sing about these issues. I also try to include other parts of life that anyone in the world can identify with and relate to.”
Brahim is now based in Barcelona, where she lives with her husband and two young children. Up until 1975, the Western Sahara was under the colonial control of Spain. Many linguistic ties still exist between the territories, but Brahim’s spoken Spanish appears most informed by the childhood years she spent as a scholarship student in Cuba. This experience was relatively common among Sahrawis of her age, but she believes that her time in the republic may have left her with more than an accent.
“While I was there, I wasn’t making music,” she says, “but I was exposed to the heritage of the country. I got to know the work of a lot of people. It was all very new for me then, but now I think some element of my time there will always be present in my songs.”
Where Brahim’s third outing, Mabruk, explored a harder-edged rock-influenced sound, Soutak offers folk music distilled to its purest essence. Slightly smoother than the traditional Sahrawi songs of artists such as Mariem Hassan, the album’s pared-down rhythms and acoustic instrumentation place emphasis on Brahim’s richly textured vocals. “I felt that I needed to make a simpler sound,” Brahim says. “I wanted to focus on the new songs and their lyrics, and to use the tabal – the traditional Sahrawi percussion instrument – prominently.”
If it can be compared to anything, Brahim’s recent work most strongly echoes the raw passion of blues and flamenco. In fact, it is no surprise to learn that many such artists have figured heavily on her personal playlist. “My country is very connected to Spanish history and culture; that’s why I use Spanish in some of my songs [in addition to Hassaniya Arabic]. I listen to lots of traditional Spanish music. From Africa, I love artists like Ali Farka Touré, Momo Wandel Soumah, Salif Keita and Miriam Makeba. I can also feel a strong connection between my own work and that of Dimi Mint Abba – she’s an emblematic female singer in haul culture. But lately I’ve spent a lot of time listening to American music, too: Big Mama Thornton, Koko Taylor, Billie Holiday, Jimi Hendrix …”
Of course, the idea of desert blues is not new. Malian Tuareg bands such as Tinariwen, whose sixth album Emaar was released last month, and Tamikrest, with whom Brahim shares a record label, have done much to popularise the form in recent years. While Brahim’s approach is somewhat different, relying on the poignancy of the human voice rather than sandstorms of electric guitars, she does recognise a good deal of common ground.
“I celebrate the success of these artists,” she says. “They are musicians who I listen to and like a great deal. They deserve what they have achieved and they have a fascinating musical culture. The growing acceptance of African music around the world is a very positive thing for all of us. Of course, I feel a relationship with other African artists because we are all from the same continent, but in many ways we are all very different. In the case of those bands, though, the Tuareg culture is very similar to the Sahrawi culture. In my country a lot of people like their music, and there is definitely a connection there for me too.”
When I met Brahim in Barcelona with her family, just before Soutak entered the European World Music Chart at No 1, she was clearly happy and fulfilled, both professionally and personally. With a number of international appearances planned for the coming months and the tally of glowing reviews still growing, she has reached a high point in her career. But that good fortune is tempered by the harsher realities that inform so much of her work.
“The camps where I was born are where many of the people who are most important to me still have to live,” she says. “I still keep in contact with ­everyone and visit them whenever I can. It’s a paradox, though. I have this freedom of expression in so many places, yet it is denied to me in my own country. I know that the Sahrawi people enjoy my music, but they have to enjoy it in a clandestine way. I feel very lucky that I get to perform all over the world and to spread the messages that are in my music. I just hope that we, the Sahrawi people, can enjoy our own culture in freedom at some point in the future.”

Dave Stelfox is a photographer and journalist based in London, The National

Review of my new album 'Soutak' in The Quietus

 With Soutak, Barcelona-based Saharan songwriter Aziza Brahim follows up two releases with the group Gulili Mankoo. The album title translates as "your voice" and the acoustic arrangements of the tracks showcase a rhythmic blueprint for the desert rock style popularised by the likes of Tinariwen and Tamikrest in recent years. With Tamikrest producer Chris Eckman (of Dirtmusic/The Walkabouts) at the controls, the tracks were recorded live in a Barcelona studio last summer by a six piece group. The songs tell stories of the plight of people from Sawahari refugee camps between Algeria and the Western Sahara where Aziza was raised following Morocco's 1975 invasion of the Western Sahara, and takes inspiration from the music of Mali. Brahim also looks to refugees from other parts of the world to share their stories, and the musical influences on the album also stretch much further. Having experienced firsthand the hardship of living as a refugee, Brahim travelled to Cuba as a young teenager and encountered the problems there during its economic crisis in the 1990s.

The album opens with the defiant 'Gdiem Izik', in which Brahim recounts witnessing the "horror and torture" of the protest "Camp of Dignity" crushed by the Moroccan-backed authorities, and event cited by Noam Chomsky as a catalyst for the Arab Spring. Brahim's powerful words address how "oppression" at the camp was picked up on by the media, as fiercely played guitar riffs fall onto relentless percussion, and wild, trilling vocal ululations appear towards the end of the track. The acoustic arrangement contrasts with the electric mode of Brahim's previous group's releases, but with its strong groove, it is no less powerful.

The album is influenced by a mixture of Malian, Spanish, Cuban and contemporary Anglo-European styles, linked together by traditional Sahawari sounds. It makes for gently uplifting songs, Aziza's powerful voice at the forefront. The group features Spanish and Malian musicians assembled by the singer, and includes her sister Badre Abdallhe on backing vocals. Aziza also plays acoustic rhythm guitar and tabal - a traditional Sawahari hand-drum. 'Lagi (Refugee)' begins with a captivating solo vocal before the hypnotically intricate guitars come in, clean and exquisitely played, but with a looseness to the structure as Brahim rasps the universal story of refugees living in tents "worn-out by time" from Mali and beyond to the Ivory Coast, Sudan and Palestine.

On fifth track, 'Aradana' the music is stripped back to a percussive skeleton as the sisters share vocals in a haunting duet, singing, "The mist returned without him," as they lament the disappearance of a loved one. The arrangement reflects the way Brahim composes her songs, lyrics first, music second, with emphasis on the tabal as the source. And when the guitars return on title track 'Soutak' it is a seamless transition, the song dips into different grooves as the lead guitar lines complement the singing, while adding extra layers of hypnotic melodies as Brahim sings, "I want to hear your voice and the sweet words that have lived within me."

The lively flamenco flavoured 'Manos Enemigas (The Enemy's Hands)', complements the Latin feel throughout the album, in which Brahim asserts "I am not afraid of my enemy, every day I experience the explosion," reflecting on the powerlessness and even the desensitisation in the face of constant conflict. The message throughout the album is one of the struggle faced by the Sawahari people who "cannot live in peace" and is perhaps best summed up on album closer 'Ya Watani (My Land)': "My beloved land, My symbol and sustenance... The dream of my descendants, I reject this injustice." On Soutak Aziza Brahim offers music as the struggle for empowerment. 

Richie Troughton,  The Quietus