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MP3 Sapho - Digital Sheikha
13 MP3 Songs
WORLD: Middle East, WORLD: World Beat
Details:
Born in Marrakech, Sapho left Morocco at the age of seventeen and moved with her parents to Paris, where after studying at university, she first worked as an actress and then entered the "petit Conservatoire de Mireille". Her Début-album "Le Balayeur du Rex" was released in 1977. One year later she went to New York as a correspondent for the trendy magazine "Actuel"; and finally stayed there for one year to perform with different musicians of the local New Wave - No Wave scene. In 1980 she recorded with American musicians the album "Janis" in London, which is considerd her most violent album of all. Seven other albums followed in the eighties and early nineties, coloured more and more by Arabic influences. An Oum Kalsoum version of "El Atlal" in 1994, a very courageous and quite risky venture, was well received in Arabic countries as well as in Europe and Japan.
A funny incident in the medina of Marrakech was at the origin of our first meeting and led to our collaboration influenced by Arabic roots and culture. (Sapho had no telephone access one day and was forced to use the neighbours` phone to make a call; by chance this was the house of some of the members of Aisha Kandisha`s Jarring Effects. Sapho heard their CD and checked out the press book, a few days later, Barraka Prod. had the luck to call AKJE friends when Sapho was visiting and the contact was made). A couple of days later we met in Paris and decided to work together without knowing how. Anyway, the decision was made and the next stop was Casablanca, where the first recordings took place to develop "Digital Sheikha" with different local musicians. In just three hectic days, the main ideas and influences were brought together and a certain chaos full of energy was reworked a few months later with the keyboards and darbukka of Jalal Hamdaoui from Mara & Jalal.
Zahera and her girls from Hallilifa, one of the most popular and famous Sheikha combos of Marrakech, were singing and jamming along with Sapho on six tracks, as if she (Sapho) had been a member of the bunch for ages. But what exactly is a Sheikha ? In Morocco or Algeria, it`s a kind of "woman of ill-repute" or outcast who sings at weddings and feasts, with heavy make up, gold teeth, who drinks a lot and smokes dope. They shake their hair to the beat, move their sensual bellies to please women and men; sing about love and other realistic themes from the daily life. At feasts, they are well accepted and admired for their freedom and independence acquired in an Islamic country; in their private lives however they seem to suffer a certain disgrace from societie`s attitude to them, which forces them to live often together and hidden, rejected by their families and relatives.
With "Digital Sheikha" Sapho gets a step closer to her Moroccan roots and background, where Bill Laswell introduces his subtle basslines, interculturalfusion- understanding and imaginative mixing on four deep tracks ! (pump up the volume..., let the walls of your room and your stomach tremble..., tell your flat-mates what`s up... and get down to the bass-fury). For the third time in the Barraka history, he has shown us again his unique and natural facility to integrate this typical, awe-inspiring knowledge and the wisdom of a master`s respectful, intelligent -"outtaspace"-treatment that makes the walls of Jericho fall down. A long time ago, Bill and Sapho met each other once in Tokyo, but neither of them could have thought that one day they would inherit our planet (s) and souls...
Good old friend Cheb Qchatar and ex-guitarist of AKJE did his very special part on a drunken guitar and bouzouki to guide the Sheikhats to a maybe more eccentric output, as did a very freaked out Aziz Heditan on an also very flying violin. Yeah, but they did it, in any state of mind; and it came from the heart, another Sheikha heart ? Sapho, our victim of the delicious Moroccan sinister and vicious UNDERGROUND ? You might become the judge if you dare !!! But beware... Confusion is the reality we are living in...
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