Natacha Atlas
Singer
Natacha Atlas was born in Belgium from an Egyptian father and an English mother. She grew up in the suburbs of Brussels, becoming fluent in French, Spanish, Arabic and English, immersing herself in Arabic culture, Egyptian “shaabi” pop and learning from childhood the raks sharki - belly dance - techniques that she uses to devastating effect on stage today. Even more striking than Natacha’s dance moves, though, is her voice, which swoops and soars, blending unfettered talent and the complexities of Arabic musical theory into a burst of sound that is thrilling, immediate and evocative.
Natacha moved to England as a teenager and became Northampton’s first Arabic rock singer. Since then she has involved herself in a wide variety of musical projects. Dividing her time between the UK and Brussels, she sang in a variety of Arabic and Turkish nightclubs, and spent a brief stint in a Belgian salsa band called Mandanga. The success of her earlier work, both in the Middle East and in the West, including a top ten hit in France, has shown just how alluring a musical bridging of the divide can be; the exotic Arabic scales, rhythms and textures open up new horizons for 4/4-entrapped western pop and create possibilities for the enormous and varied Middle Eastern music scene to communicate outside itself. In 1995 she released her first solo LP, Diaspora to critical acclaim, a combination of beat-driven global dance of her long-time associates TransGlobal Underground with more traditional work of Arabic musicians. The result was a collection of songs of love and yearning which genuinely fused West and East. Her second LP, Halim, sees Natacha exploring further her deeply felt affinity with Arabic musical heritage. With Mish Maoul released in 2006, Atlas’ harks back in sound and traditions to the music she grew up hearing in the Moroccan suburb of Brussels, particularly when the Golden Sound Studio Orchestra of Cairo makes its entrance.
In 2008 the World Village label releases the cd Ana Hina with the Mazeeka Ensemble which marks her début acoustic project where she explores a more traditional roots world, infusing Oriental and Western music but looking to the past to uncover a rich history of musical collaboration.
Natacha Atlas has achieved her iconic status not by pursuing a conservative musical path but creating an exciting, varied body of work that refuses to be neatly categorised. Over the past decade, she has entrancingly fused North African and Arabic music with western electronic beats to produce a unique dance music hybrid.
Picture © Stephen Freiheit
