HINDI ZAHRA’S DEBUT ALBUM ‘HAND MADE’ OUT NOW
Tert.am
12:26 ~U 19.01.10
Courted by a number of different labels, Hindi Zahra took her time
before finally going with Blue Note France, reports Radio France
Internationale.
Of Berber origin, Hindi Zahra was born in 1979 in Khouribga, a mining
town in southern Morocco, and left for Paris in 1993 to rejoin family
members there. Hindi Zahra has a tenacious, free-spirited character
which has allowed her to create her own world through the sheer
force of her convictions and intuitions. "Music has always spurred my
imagination." She passed her baccalaureat and worked in a series of
small-time jobs with the sole ambition of developing her song writing,
owing nothing to anyone.
"When it comes to music, I can work very hard and for a long time,"
Hindi explains, although her preference is to work late at night.
Influenced by the great Maghreb singers and the Egyptian divas,
Hindi was brought up on traditional Berber music and also the local
rock’n’roll her musician uncles played. Other early influences were
Ali Farka Toure’s Sahara blues and the folk sounds of Ismaël Lô. The
young Hindi also listened to African-American music ("anything with
a groove"), as well as Bob Marley.
She started out doing hip hop backing vocals before getting into
Paris’s alternative scene, where she found her exceptionally original
voice, which has a touch of soul about it but with a different twist.
It’s no coincidence that she first found her feet with a song
ambiguously entitled Oursoul (which can read as "our soul" or as
the Berber word meaning "never again"). Written in 2005, the song is
about arranged marriages. It was "the trigger", she says. "Suddenly
everything fell into place."
>>From that point on the words and music flowed and very soon she
had dozens of songs up her sleeve. Many ended up in the bin but one
stood out from the others: Beautiful Tango. "I was proud of it and
knew it was good." With this song she’d found her unique style. Her
MySpace site created a buzz, and highbrow UK music monthly The Wire
was writing about her as the next Billy Holiday. Even better, the song
featured in an ad campaign in the UK, giving her breathing space to
put a collection of songs together without too much pressure.
The result of all that work is Hand Made, with its handful of themes,
one of which is herself as a "self-made-workin’-woman." Hence the
album title, which she justifies with a touch of humour: "handcrafted,
made in Morocco!" Before adding on a more serious note: "The musicians
play with their hands, and I play percussion and mess about on bass."
She demonstrates a fine-tuned sense of melody, with a touch of
melancholy, but with some swing to it as well. The music serves as
a perfect foil for her lyrics.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
