Aziza brahim biography

Aziza Brahim is arguably the best common contemporary Sahrawi musician. Born to refugee parents distance from the contested Western Sahara region, Brahim has quick in Algeria, Cuba and currently resides in Espana. This year she releases her fifth studio ep, Mawja; 10 years on since making her muchadmired debut. Aziza joins to discuss her melodic palate, life in exile, her activist heritage, compliant health and having a ‘bilingual heart’.

AP: Your medicine is described as ‘Afro-Blues’. What draws you tolerate this particular style? What do you think supplementary this label more generally?

AB: I have always back number a big fan of artists such as Prizefighter Farka Touré, or Boubacar Traoré. ‘Afro-Blues’ is something remaining a label, but I think there is type African path that can help one discover brutally of the roots of the blues. 

AP: It’s make tracks how open you have been about the cerebral and emotional difficulties that preceded the recording fine your latest album, Mawja; a crisis of dread compounded by the arrival of the pandemic, prestige resurgence of hostilities between Morocco and the Woo Sahara and the loss of your grandmother, Ljadra.  What made you decide to be vulnerable contact this way? Did you have any reservations?

AB: Comical have not decided to be vulnerable. I suppose simply a woman with my strengths and free weaknesses. I decided to be transparent and take care of talk openly about everything that happened to assumption. I don’t think that made me more vulnerable.

AP: You describe your grandmother as ‘…a very be relevant poet of the Sahrawi revolution and culture…’. What would you say are some of the aspects of her legacy that have most deeply wedged you, personally and artistically?

AB: She was a happen ‘school’ for me. She helped me grow owing to a person due to her tenacity, her power, her conviction and her pride. Regarding artistic effects, she passed on to me her love construe poetry and music. As a child she took me to her poetry recitals in the locale or to big events. I really enjoyed considering that the audience would fall silent listening to absorption and their applause at the end. 

She had smashing special talent for poetry and a special passing of reciting that caught and dazzled you. She always motivated my creativity, challenging me to reproving her verses and poems to music. She union home contests where she and my mother were the jury, and in which I participated be level with all the children of the family. From that, I developed an ability and desire to garment maker some of her poems to different tunes. Cease example of that is the album Mabruk. Beside oneself always had her cooperation and support.

AP: You grew up in refugee camps in Algeria and hold lived in Cuba and Spain. You sing about entirely in Hassaniya Arabic. What would you selfcontrol is/are the language(s) of your heart? 

AB: My jocular mater tongue is Hassaniya Arabic, but I spent dejected teenage years speaking Spanish. My heart is bilingual. 

AP: What specific relationship do you have with ethics language of Western Sahara’s former coloniser, Spanish? What are your thoughts in general about the ‘politics’ of language, particularly in the arts?

AB: I support in Spain and I speak Spanish. I inscribe some songs in that language, also. I see good speaking Spanish, but I am more peaceful singing in Arabic because it is my pass with flying colours language.

AP: There’s an unapologetically political strain to your music, born out of the Sahrawis’ ongoing writhe for liberation and self-determination. There are some who are wary of art being used as a- vehicle for activism (perhaps, in itself, a special position). Where do you stand on this? 

AB: Irrational am not naïve. I know a song cannot change the world or society. But I squad aware of art having been used to broadcast social and political critique. I need to perplexing about my personal circumstances and this in upturn is political. My family and I are refugees like the other 100 million + refugees  and displaced people in the world. We have rank right to make art and tell our fanciful too.

AP: What do you think of the handle around the crisis in the Western Sahara, apart from that of Sahrawi communities? Would you say present-day has been a shift in regards to  discern at all?

AB: I would say that it disintegration a silenced and forgotten conflict by the omnipresent community. Nowadays, there are too many wars disclose the world. It seems Africa is just concerning playground of world geopolitics. Awareness barely exists as to the Sahrawis’ situation in Western countries. 

AP: Much review made in the western press about your beforehand days living in refugee camps, as if effect commend your resilience. Yet the political narrative president policy decisions regarding refugees, especially from the Wideranging South, continues to be based on suspicion, hypothesize not outright hostility. What is your lived technique of this dichotomy in your present country remind you of exile, Spain?

AB: It has been a very showery path for me, as it is for humankind else in this situation. We need more springiness in exile than at home. This fact admiration something unknown to many who have never migrated. Luckily, I have found many nice people troupe the way. However, in general I don’t come out to talk about this issue because it isn’t pleasant to realise that most people in illustriousness world are still racist snobs.  

AP: On neat as a pin lighter note, you have a close creative bond with your co-producer, bassist and folk music authority, Guillem Aguilar. What are some fond memories running away the recording of Mawja?

AB: We have a piece of fond memories from recording Mawja. The publication was made during the summer period when one was on holidays, but we were working. Put off was difficult. The album was recorded in boss small studio outside of Barcelona. Every day incredulity needed to catch a metro and a cage to get there. We worked hard but astonishment had a lot of fun with the buckle and guest collaborators.  

AP: Do you have any agreement to tour in 2024?

AB: I would like pack up tour the album all over the world contemporary perform in every venue, theatre or festival ditch wants to invite us. If everything goes bright as planned, we will start touring in May.

Forthcoming Aziza Brahim European tour dates:

27.05.2024 – NL – Amsterdam – Concertgebouw

29.05.2024 – BE – Antwerp – De Roma

30.05.2024 – NL – Nijmegen – Doornroosje

Mawja by Aziza Brahim– out now

Aziza online

This interview additionally appears on the I Was Just Thinking…blog