Beautiful Tango - From Sophie Marquestaut

Zahra Hindi



Beautiful Tango, take me by the hand
Beautiful Tango, until you make me dance
How sweet it can be if you make me dance?
How long will it last, baby if we dance?

Come to the, come to the world
Come to the, come to the world
And baby let me show you things
Cause time is running and we can lose, baby come and dance we gonna make it through
Cause we've got time
Yes we've got time

Beautiful stranger, don't want to know your name
Beautiful stranger, just want to take your hand
How sweet it can be if you make me dance?
How long will it last, baby if we dance?

Come to the place where the skin speaks
A secret words in spanish
Where the night turns out the lights of day

For us to show some courage

So don't go if you wanna know
Don't go if you don't know
Don't go, if you wanna know
Don't go, don't go, don't go

Beautiful stranger, take me by the hand
Make me dance all night
I wanna take the chance
I love the way you move
And the way you put your hands on my hips
are moving while you take it slow
Makes me feel like I'm on a river flow
Cause we've got time
And yes we've got time

Beautiful stranger, I wanna lose my mind
Beautiful stranger, in the depth of your eyes
Beautiful stranger, oh oh oh oh
I remember, I remember, I remember...your

Sweet music, sweet sweet sweet music, sweet music rising...

http://www.myspace.com/zahrahindi

Hardly have her lips approached the microphone than your ear is drawn in, gently but irresistibly. Just the slightest nonchalance in the hips with a filigree of swing in the delivery, a delicately veiled voice. Meet Hindi Zahra and her original gently undulating sense of melody. With a subtle, understated guitar accompaniment, a dash of gypsy guitar between the lines, and a hint of blues but with a capital B. Time stands still. Intense, intimate, poetic vibrations, with a velvety feline timbre.

At thirty, Hindi Zahra is neither a reality show wonder nor the umpteenth shooting star fizzing across the firmament of vocal jazz. Music is the story of her life, a family affair. The story of a Berber girl born in Morocco. Her father was in the army and her mother a housewife, occasional actress and singer of village repute. Among her uncles were musicians, into the post-psychedelic Moroccan scene of the time. She grew up to the sound of divas raï and châabi, like Cheikha Rimitti, and the great Egyptian Oum Khalsoum between traditional Berber music and desert rock’n’roll, with the blues of the great Malian Ali Farka Touré and the sensual folk music of Ismaël Lo in the wings. All this before she set out across the Mediterranean to join her father in Paris.

She left school and got her first job at 18 in the Louvre. “This was my meeting with art. As a child, I was contemplative, in touch with nature. The paintings gave me the same sensations.” The Dutch masters were soothing, as music had always been. “Sound has always fuelled my imagination.” Her dreams were soon to materialise. At night she worked secretly on melancholic lyrics and wrote melodies for years. “When it comes to music I’m prepared to work long and hard.”

A fan of “the Afro-American groove” she singles out Aretha Franklin, James Brown, 2Pac, and Tribe Called Quest she learned her chops doing backing vocals on hip-hop flavoured soul before embarking on her solo career. “I soon got fed up with the machines and loops, but what I took away from that experience was the understanding of what I really wanted to do.”

Starting in 2005, the self-taught composer was soon etching in the contours of the music that would reflect her personality, turning out some fifty songs in just one year. From these, two gems emerge. The first, Oursoul, is a tantalisingly ambiguous word play: what looks like English is in fact a Berber word meaning “bygones”. Against an arrangement evocative of American folk, the song tells the unfulfilled dreams of a young girl destined for marriage.

Then came Beautiful Tango, a ballad rich in timeless nostalgia, a hymn to love, a sad thought with the power to pull tender heartstrings. “I had no doubts about the tune, so it was a relief when the words came naturally”, she admits. Beautiful Tango got serious kudos from The Wire, the reference in Britain’s “adventurous music” press, which heralded her as a worthy successor to Billie Holiday, no less. “Jazz is the only place where I can hear notes from my homeland. Jazz equals freedom to create. It’s a great school.” Better still, Fink, a pure product of the Ninja Tune “chilled electro” stable, encouraged her to take her time, and fine-tune her songbook. For two years she honed her set, developing a trademark difference in style: bucolic on the edges, tinted with nocturnal blues, with ideas running through fingers and voice.

Her first album has a playing time of 40 minutes and contains eleven songs, just what it takes and no more. The production and arrangements are her own, end-to-end, and already have the patina of maturity: a pared down sophisticated lady mood. “I write a lyric; I play a riff, I record the guitars and the rhythm parts. Then I fit the words.” With style in her piano and ideas in her style, Hindi Zahra chisels away at her own original groove, a finely crafted soundtrack of soul-folk-jazz ballads and south Moroccan roots, on the cusp of black culture, embellished here by some bendir, there by a ganoua bass line, or lyrics in Berber on tracks like Imik Simik and Petit à petit (Little by little), a title that fits her well. A versatile multi-instrumentalist she has quietly, away from the limelight, gone about the business of building an authenticity, that is there in her songs, “always about love” and people, “very simply”.


Hindi Zahra is sounding like the musical child of Django Rheinhardt and Billie Holiday, the Paris-based Hindi is a captivating musician. Her song “Beautiful Tango” is a revelation—simple yet sophisticated, sparse yet emotive. It’s fresh even while it reverberates with history. This style continues in “Oursoul” and “Try.” A touch of hip-hop and soul influence, retaining the simple, downbeat understatement of her other songs while adding an almost ethereal quality. Somewhere between her Moroccan roots and her life in Paris, singer-songwriter Hindi Zahra lost track of her many musical influences: the result is a mesmerizing elemental folk, a desert blues with african/american music. Check her out at

Ya Rahay

Dahmane El Harrachi


Cheb Khaled, Rachid Taha, Faudel


Rachid Taha



Oh Traveller!

Oh where are you going?
Eventually you must come back
How many ignorant people have regretted this
Before you and me

How many overpopulated countries and empty lands have you seen?
How much time have you wasted?
How much have you yet to lose?
Oh emigrant in the country of others
Do you even know what's going on?
Destiny and time follow their course but you ignore it

Why is your heart so sad?
And why are you staying there miserable?
Hardship will end and you no longer learn or build anything
The days don't last, just as your youth and mine didn't
Oh poor fellow who missed his chance just as I missed mine

Oh traveler, I give you a piece of advice to follow right away
See what is in your interest before you sell or buy
Oh sleeper, your news reached me
And what happened to you happened to me
Thus, the heart returns to its creator, the Highest (God)

رشيد طه - يا رايح

يا رايح وين تسافر تروح تعيي وتولينى
ايش حال ندموا العباد الغافلين قبلك وقبلى

ايش حال شفت البلدان العامرين والبر الخالى
ايش حال ضيعت اوقات وايش حال زيد ما زال تخلى
يا الغايب فى بلاد الناس ايش حال تعيي ما تجرى
تزيد وعد القدرة ولى الزمان وانت ما تدرى

علاش قلبك حزين وعلاش هكدا كى الزوال
ما تدوم الشدة ولا تزيد تعلم وتبنى
ما يدومولى الايام ولا يدوم صغرك وصغرى
ويا حليلو المسكين اللى غاب سعده كى زهرى

يا مسافر نعطيك وصية تيجاها ع البكرى
شوف ما يصلح ليك قبل ولا تبيع ولا تشرى
يا النايم جانى خبرك كى ماصرالك صار لى
هكدا رد القلب والجبين..سبحان العالى



Taha's version of "Ya Rayah" is a classic example of a traditional song presented in a new fashion.

"Ya Rayah" begins with a short taqsim, improvisation, on the banjo instead of the ud that smoothly leads into the piece proper, which is characterized by a heavy down beat.

The song's popularity stems from its simple groove and summation of the new generation's plight, seeking freedom and a better life. Sung and released in Paris, "Ya Rayah" capitalizes on the ancient Algerian concept of mehna in its embodiment of Algerians' struggle, loss, and yearning to go back home.

Here, concepts like traveling and touring take on a gloomy destiny that lead to despair and loss. One can even draw connections between the "touring" star, its migration through the universe, and the exiled self of the Algerian people. Burdened by poverty and their constant search outside of Algeria for a better life, their spirit is in a constant state of travel, intensified by feelings of exile and departure. We can only imagine how such lyrics would strike a chord within the hearts of hundreds of thousands Algerian immigrants living away from home under conditions of displacement throughout Europe.

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Ya rayah win msafar trouh taaya wa twali
Chhal nadmou laabad el ghaflin qablak ou qabli Ya rayah win msafar trouh taaya wa twali
Chhal nadmou laabad el ghaflin qablak ou qabli

Chhal cheft al bouldan laamrine wa lber al khali
Chhal dhiyaat wqat chhal tzid mazal ou t'khali
Ya lghayeb fi bled ennas chhal taaya ma tadjri
Tzid waad el qoudra wala zmane wenta ma tedri

Ya rayah win msafar trouh taaya wa twali
Chhal nadmou laabad el ghaflin qablak ou qabli Ya rayah win msafar trouh taaya wa twali
Chhal nadmou laabad el ghaflin qablak ou qabli

Ya msafer naatik oussaayti addiha el bakri
Chouf ma yeslah bik qbal ma tbia ou ma techri
Ya nnayem djani khabrek ma sralek ma srali
Hakdha rad el qalb bel djbine sabhane el aali

Ya rayah win msafar trouh taaya wa twali
Chhal nadmou laabad el ghaflin qablak ou qabli Ya rayah win msafar trouh taaya wa twali
Chhal nadmou laabad el ghaflin qablak ou qabli
Ya rayah win msafar trouh taaya wa twali
Chhal nadmou laabad el ghaflin qablak ou qabli Ya rayah win msafar trouh taaya wa twali
Chhal nadmou laabad el ghaflin qablak ou qabli

****************************


Ya rayah win msafar trouh taaya wa twali
"Oh traveler where are you going, you'll go, get tired, and come back"

Chhal nadmou laabad el ghaflin qablak ou qabli
"How the people failed, before you and me"

[repition again]Ya rayah win msafar trouh taaya wa twali
Chhal nadmou laabad el ghaflin qablak ou qabli

Chhal cheft al bouldan laamrine wa lber al khali
"How many cities i've seen and the deserted desert"

Chhal dhiyaat wqat chhal tzid mazal ou t'khali
"How much time i've wasted, how much more, still and you leave it" (roughly)

Ya lghayeb fi bled ennas chhal taaya ma tadjri
"Oh you absent one from the country of the people, how tired can you be and run"

Tzid waad el qoudra wala zmane wenta ma tedri
"You'll add more, the promising will, it became history, and you didn't know"

[repition x2] Ya rayah win msafar trouh taaya wa twali
Chhal nadmou laabad el ghaflin qablak ou qabli
Ya rayah win msafar trouh taaya wa twali
Chhal nadmou laabad el ghaflin qablak ou qabli

Ya msafer naatik oussaayti addiha el bakri
"Oh traveller, i'll give you my advice take it [with you] ahead of time"

Chouf ma yeslah bik qbal ma tbia ou ma techri
"Look, what could be good for you, before you start selling and buying" (this is a saying in algeria)

Ya nnayem djani khabrek ma sralek ma srali
"Oh you sleeper, i got your news, what has happened to you happened to me"

Hakdha rad el qalb bel djbine sabhane el aali
"Like this the heart has accpeted from the Amighty [God]"

[repition x4]Ya rayah win msafar trouh taaya wa twali
Chhal nadmou laabad el ghaflin qablak ou qabli
Ya rayah win msafar trouh taaya wa twali
Chhal nadmou laabad el ghaflin qablak ou qabli
Ya rayah win msafar trouh taaya wa twali
Chhal nadmou laabad el ghaflin qablak ou qabli
Ya rayah win msafar trouh taaya wa twali
Chhal nadmou laabad el ghaflin qablak ou qabli


Dahmane El Harrachi (real name Abderrahim Amrani Marrakchi)
(born on July 7, 1925 in El Biar, Alger, Algeria-died on August 31, 1980 in Alger, Algeria) was an Algerian Chaâbi singer of Chaoui origin. He is mostly remembered for his song "Ya Rayah" which has since been made famous again by the likes of Rachid Taha, Cheb Khaled and Faudel.

He moved to France in 1949 living in Lille, then Marseille, before eventually settling in Paris.
It was in Paris where he made a name for himself, playing in the numerous Algerian cafés.
He died on August 31, 1980 in a car accident on the highway in Algiers.

Rachid Taha (Arabic: رشيد طه‎) (born 1958) is an French-Algerian musician. His music is influenced by many different styles such as rock, techno and raï.

Taha was born in Oran, Algeria. His father was a factory worker.[1] Taha's family immigrated to France in 1968.
While working in a heating appliance factory in the late 1970s, Taha founded Les Refoulés ("The Rejects"), a nightclub where he would spin mashups of Arabic pop classics over Led Zeppelin, Bo Diddley and Kraftwerk backbeats.

Based in Paris where he began his solo career after his beginnings as the leader of the French rock band Carte de Séjour, he usually sings in Arabic. In 1981, while living in Lyon, Taha met Mohammed and Mokhtar Amini. The three of them, Rachid, Djamel Dif and Eric Vaquer would later form the band "Carte De séjour" (green card) and record their first maxi Album Carte De Séjour in 1983.

Some critics attribute Taha's unique sound to his use of the mandolute, a mixture of the traditional oud with European fretted instruments.The song Barra Barra from his album Made in Medina was featured in the 2001 film Black Hawk Down as well as in the Games Convention 2008 trailer of the game Far Cry 2. Recently was featured in the 2007 film The Hunting Party. His song "Garab" from "Made in Medina" was used in the movie The Truth About Charlie in 2002, and also in Blood and Chocolate in 2007.

Abdel Kader

Cheb Khaled, Rachd Taha, Faudel



Khaled

Refrain:
Ou abdelkader ya boua'alam
Daq el hal a'liya
Dawi hali ya boua'lam
Sidi rouf a'liya

a'abdelkader ya boua'lam
Daq el hal a'liya
Dawi hali ya boua'lam
Sidi rouf a'liya

Refrain

Sidi a'abdrrahmane
Dir mejhoudek ou thazzam
Ou nta rajel qayem
kh'dimek dir mziya

Refrain

Ya Sidi Boumediène
Ou Ana fi ardek m'amman
Ya Sidi Boumediène
Ana fi ardek m'amman
Ya Sidi Lhouari
Soultane elghali
Ou chfini Abdallah
Soultane ela'aliya

Refrain

Daa'wat dik llila
Yana dik lmablia
Khallatni fi hira
Yana la'achra touila
Daa'wat dik llila
Ya malik lmabliya
Khallatni fi hira
Yana la'achra touila

Refrain

Hadak Lwali wah
R'wahe daouili hali
Sidi a'abdrrahmane
daoui daoui daoui
Abdel Kader, my master, my guide
Ease my pain, make me strong
Help me through the dark night of my soul
O sweet girl of my homeland
Why is my heart so troubled
While yours is at peace? In spite of love's many pleasures
She's turned away and left me
After a night of bliss
Abdel Kader, keeper of the keys
Keeper of my soul
I have left heaven and come back to earth
Away from her arms
I pray life is long enough to let me start over
Heal me and turn away from my pain

Abdel Kader (Arabic: عبد القادر‎) is an Arabic song made famous by the Algerian raï artist Khaled. It is featured on his 1993 studio album N'ssi N'ssi and gained further popularity from the live performance on the 1998 live album 1,2,3 Soleils (performed live at Bercy with Rachid Taha and Faudel).