One of the most significant trends in modern Algerian music comes from the region of Kabylia, the most important center for the country's substantial Berber minority.
Singer, songwriter and guitarist Hassen Zermani, who records under the name Takfarinas (named after a Berber chief who routed the...
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One of the most significant trends in modern Algerian music comes from the region of Kabylia, the most important center for the country's substantial Berber minority.
Singer, songwriter and guitarist Hassen Zermani, who records under the name Takfarinas (named after a Berber chief who routed the Roman army in the second century), comes out of the Kabyle tradition. And like the major rai artists, Takfarinas has been at it for a long time. He has attempted to renovate the Kabyle song, and garnered some popularity in France and North Africa. Conscious of the importance of brand names in the World Music market, he has even christened his music with the genre name "Yal", which he sees as the Kabyle competitor with rai.
Rai's popularity in the West since the late '80s has had contradictory effects. On the one hand, as the first Middle Eastern genre to enter the World Music scene, rai music opened the way for other Middle Eastern and North African artists. On the other, rai still tends to overshadow other genres of North African music in particular, due to the ongoing popularity of older artists like Khaled and Cheb Mami and newer ones like Faudel. Since Algeria, the cradle of rai, appears to be all about rai music, this makes it hard for an Algerian artist doing something else to make any headway.
Takfarinas's latest recording, 'Yal', incorporates a wide variety of styles. The album manifests no singular musical vision, but rather, eclecticism. It is Kabyle song, sung for the most part in Tamazight (plus some French), mixed variously with funk, flamenco, French ballad and reggae.
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