{"id":26247,"date":"2023-05-01T09:55:47","date_gmt":"2023-05-01T07:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=26247"},"modified":"2023-05-04T09:29:45","modified_gmt":"2023-05-04T07:29:45","slug":"the-artist-at-work-a-conversation-with-souad-massi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/the-artist-at-work-a-conversation-with-souad-massi\/","title":{"rendered":"The Artist at Work\u2014a Conversation with Souad Massi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Souad Massi is touring Europe with her new album for the rest of the year. Check her schedule at <a href=\"https:\/\/souad-massi.com\/concerts\/\">souadmassi.com<\/a> for tour dates and tickets. Her sold-out Montpellier concert was coproduced by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.festivalarabesques.fr\/caravane-arabesques\">Caravan Arabesques<\/a>, a project of Unison out of Montpellier which supports Arab cultural arts performances and education throughout the region and beyond.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>Jordan Elgrably<\/h4>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Souad Massi is a free spirit and a wildflower. Like a Forget-me-not or a Dame\u2019s Rocket, she thrives in both hot and cool climates, high up in mountains at the height of her singing career or in the low flatlands, during Covid. Like a botanical chameleon she adapts to sun or shade, and the metaphor isn\u2019t arbitrary; if you look at the cover of her new, post-Covid album, <em>Sequana<\/em>, there are daisies in Souad\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI love all wildflowers,\u201d she says during our conversation just before a concert she gave in Montpellier while on tour. \u201cI think people are a little mean to these wildflowers and plants. They pull them out, like weeds. And what I love about these plants is that they grow back every time. And for me, it&#8217;s a symbol of resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"ose-youtube ose-uid-11c77c15ada0d483416e61acde239425 ose-embedpress-responsive\" style=\"width:600px; height:550px; max-height:550px; max-width:100%; display:inline-block;\" data-embed-type=\"Youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" title=\"Souad Massi - Concert \u00e0 la Salle Pleyel, Paris - 03\/02\/2023\" width=\"600\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4OnC-sJBy_Q?feature=oembed&color=red&rel=0&controls=1&start=&end=&fs=0&iv_load_policy=0&autoplay=0&mute=0&modestbranding=0&cc_load_policy=1&playsinline=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; encrypted-media;accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;gyroscope;picture-in-picture clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A symbol of strength for millions of fans and followers, Massi has fought the patriarchy and the male-dominated music scene throughout her career as a singer-songerwriter. She\u2019s been a vocal artist and composer for more than half her life, from her beginnings in Algeria to her international career based in Paris, where she\u2019s raising two daughters with her husband and manager, Mohammed Abdel. She\u2019s also been a resistance fighter for women, for justice, and she\u2019s not shy about saying it, for universal love.<\/p>\n<p>During the pandemic, Massi says, \u201cAt first I was like everyone else, very anxious.\u201d She nourished herself by reading a lot, returning to one of her favorite texts, Khalil Gibran\u2019s <em>The Prophet<\/em>, poetry that she says imparts \u201cuniversal love that nourishes me.\u201d She also listened to a great deal of classical music and jazz and, \u201cIt may sound weird, but I listened to a lot of nature sounds, water, and lots of birds&#8230;in nature I find a little glimmer of hope.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Sequana<\/em> is her first album since <em>Oumniya<\/em> in 2019. Its 11 songs range from the powerful balads \u201cDessine-moi un pays\u201d and \u201cDib El Raba\u201d to the beautiful and hopeful \u201cCh\u2019ta.\u201d The album, for Massi, is about \u201cregeneration.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_26248\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-26248\" style=\"width: 1000px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/souadmassi.lnk.to\/Sequana\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26248\" src=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Souad-Massi-Sequana-cover-the-markaz-review.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"1000\" srcset=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Souad-Massi-Sequana-cover-the-markaz-review.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Souad-Massi-Sequana-cover-the-markaz-review-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Souad-Massi-Sequana-cover-the-markaz-review-100x100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Souad-Massi-Sequana-cover-the-markaz-review-600x600.jpg 600w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Souad-Massi-Sequana-cover-the-markaz-review-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Souad-Massi-Sequana-cover-the-markaz-review-768x768.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-26248\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">There are a dozen songs on Souad Massi&#8217;s new album, <a href=\"https:\/\/souadmassi.lnk.to\/Sequana\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sequana<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cSequana is the Gallic goddess of healing. And there&#8217;s a place along the Seine, where people, in the past, went to pray and to use the water to heal themselves. And what struck me [reading about it] was the doctors who went there, would bathe their tools in the water to do surgery, especially eye surgery.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Without exaggeration, the wildflowers of <em>Sequana<\/em> represent Souad Massi\u2019s lifelong desire for freedom. In her song \u201cDessine-moi un pays\u201d (\u201cDraw me a country\u201d), she sings in Arabic for truth and freedom, talking about the <em>harga<\/em>, the illicit journey braved by North Africans crossing the sea in search of a better life. Massi sings, &#8220;The blood of freedom runs in my veins.\u201d It\u2019s a theme that you find throughout her work.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am a person who does not like injustice and who has suffered injustice on different scales and at all ages, especially towards women, for example, or towards certain ethnic groups. I am of Kabyle origin; I have seen the racism towards the Amazigh, for example, in Algeria, or towards black people \u2014 I had friends from Africa who came to study in Algeria and I felt this racism.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don&#8217;t talk about it much back home, but there are a lot of problems, and these are things that revolted me. In fact, I was raised in a family that loves music and hates injustice. It&#8217;s in the blood.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>British music producer and guitarist Justin Adams, who worked with Massi in Paris while recording her album last year, had long been a fan. Adams, who has performed with such diverse artists as Sinead O\u2019Connor and Rachid Taha, happened to catch Massi\u2019s recent performance at London\u2019s Barbican where, he says, &#8220;It was great to see the way Souad connected with the audience and who the audience was,\u00a0people who are sort of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/youthtimemag.com\/what-is-a-third-culture-individual\/\">third culture individuals<\/a>, you know \u2014 if you&#8217;re born in one country, and your parents might be from two different cultures, and then you might move to another country, so you&#8217;ve already got this kind of [broader] cultural awareness, or consciousness. People like that kick back against narrow minded nationalism. Souad speaks to people who want to value their cultures and who might not come from a strictly white western culture can kind of dominate in the digital world.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think Souad has had such a huge impact as a woman from a Muslim country, just really standing up and being her own individual voice. She&#8217;s been a role model for women all over and I love the way she&#8217;s\u00a0refused to be limited by her background. She is so obviously deeply involved in culture, musical culture and otherwise, but also, she&#8217;s completely open and knowledgeable about all forms of music, including American country and rock. She&#8217;s got a kind of broad take, which is just about her self expression and songwriting.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I admire her as an artist who has\u00a0one foot in a Muslim country,\u201d Adams continues, \u201cand in a culture from the Maghreb, and in an Amazigh tradition, and yet who on the other hand, confidently takes on a Trent Reznor song with a reference to the Johnny Cash version, or who can quote, Latin American rhythms. It&#8217;s\u00a0a global thing, which is just so many people&#8217;s reality these days.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>WORKING WITH A MASTER<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>With Souad Massi often being the only woman \u2014 and the only Arab woman \u2014 in the recording studio and on stage, the potential for miscomprehension and discord is obviously a concern, but Adams\u2019 experience was exemplary.<\/p>\n<p>Working with her was easy, he says; they got along famously. &#8220;And she&#8217;s got a wonderful kind of calm confidence. I think her songwriting comes from a very genuine, soulful place, and she&#8217;s a natural musician. I particularly love the way that she\u00a0sort of steers her way through what is a pretty macho world. She&#8217;s got this kind of gentle, slightly humorous way of just going, okay \u2014 I&#8217;m surrounded by a lot of [dominant] males; not to overstate it, but there&#8217;s a colonial kind of racist thing going on in the background. And Souad just calmly pushes through that. She is absolutely her own person with her own vision.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"ose-youtube ose-uid-2548ad7ce7263b7e527eacd7c7d1017f ose-embedpress-responsive\" style=\"width:600px; height:550px; max-height:550px; max-width:100%; display:inline-block;\" data-embed-type=\"Youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" title=\"Souad Massi - Raoui - Live \u00e0 Bruxelles (10\/10)\" width=\"600\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZW_nQLuNbNA?feature=oembed&color=red&rel=0&controls=1&start=&end=&fs=0&iv_load_policy=0&autoplay=0&mute=0&modestbranding=0&cc_load_policy=1&playsinline=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; encrypted-media;accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;gyroscope;picture-in-picture clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>DOING IT HER WAY<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As legend would have it, Massi fled Algeria in the \u201890s during the country\u2019s violent decade, but she wants to set the record straight during this conversation. She did not leave for Paris in 1999 because of death threats.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would be a lie to tell you that,\u201d she says. \u201cI did leave Algeria but at the time I was working in an engineering consulting firm. I had just graduated. I\u2019m an urban planner by training. I was very happy to earn my first salary. It wasn\u2019t much, but then [as a performer] I was invited to a festival in Paris, Women of Algeria, which took place at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cabaretsauvage.com\/\">Cabaret Sauvage<\/a>, and it went very well, and I stayed afterwards.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She didn\u2019t exile herself for fear of being snuffed out in Algeria, but because she felt less like a fish out of water in Paris with her eclectic musical choices. Souad Massi was an innovator early on, melding her native ra\u00ef and chaabi traditions with American rock and folk, and singing in Arabic, Kabyl and French. For a while she sang with the pioneering Algerian hardrock group Atakor. And yet despite having already achieved some success in Algeria, she says, \u201cI still felt like an extraterrestrial with the style that I made my own, mixing Algerian and American folk and rock, with world music elements.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her Cabaret Savage performances didn\u2019t go unnoticed and she soon signed a contract with Universal Music\u2019s Island-Mercury. Two years later, in 2001, she issued her first album, <em>Raoui<\/em> (storyteller), which was a hit with the critics.<\/p>\n<p>One wonders whether Souad Massi feels at home in France, in view of the frequent tensions that are exacerbated by the country\u2019s right-wing, anti-immigrant demagogues, or does she feel like a nomad?<\/p>\n<p>The artist pauses thoughtfully before slowly replying. \u201cI&#8217;ll tell you: both. I feel a little bit nomadic because I travel a lot and it&#8217;s wonderful to be able to travel. And at the same time, I feel at home in the hearts of people who are good. I don&#8217;t know if this speaks to you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I tell her that what she\u2019s saying reminds me of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish\u2019s line about how &#8220;People&#8217;s hearts are their passport.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Massi nods, \u201cI think we are at home when we are <em>bien entour\u00e9<\/em>, in good company. I feel more at home when I am with beautiful people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>MASSI AS A SYMBOL OF FORTITUDE<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Souad Massi the artist is versatile and multiform, at once Kabyle, Algerian, Arab, woman, mother, artist, activist. Her diversity is her wealth, but one wonders about the challenges of managing a complex identity. Is it ever a burden?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a wealth, it is a treasure,\u201d she replies. \u201cIs it a burden? No, on the contrary, it is a gift, which allows us to evolve, to have a certain consciousness to be able to communicate with other people. I think, in relation to young people, to young girls, for example, and here I\u2019m talking about the Maghreb or Middle East, we become in spite of ourselves a symbol, and we must always try to live up to our potential and not to disappoint. It is a responsibility, I would say.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since 2005, Massi has worked with the UN as an ambassador for women in Africa. It\u2019s a cause to which she remains completely committed today. \u201cIt was a really beautiful mission for me to be the sponsor of the microcredit project that gave opportunities to women in Africa to set up their small projects. And at the moment, I am the sponsor of an association called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.medwomensfund.org\/\">The Fund for Women in the Mediterranean<\/a> that you can see on the internet. It is a magnificent association that trains associations across the Mediterranean, everywhere, to train women to raise awareness against violence against children and women, to make them more independent in several areas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As much as Massi would like to return home to Algeria to spend time with her family, she remains wary and sad \u2014 sad \u201cthat I cannot go home\u2026[because] I was one of the first artists who supported the <a href=\"https:\/\/dawnmena.org\/the-past-and-the-future-of-algerias-hirak-protests\/\">hirak<\/a> protests. And as well because of some of [the lyrics of] my songs.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_26250\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-26250\" style=\"width: 1000px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26250\" src=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Massi-and-her-band-during-a-standing-ovation-after-her-Montpellier-show.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"836\" srcset=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Massi-and-her-band-during-a-standing-ovation-after-her-Montpellier-show.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Massi-and-her-band-during-a-standing-ovation-after-her-Montpellier-show-600x502.jpg 600w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Massi-and-her-band-during-a-standing-ovation-after-her-Montpellier-show-300x251.jpg 300w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Massi-and-her-band-during-a-standing-ovation-after-her-Montpellier-show-768x642.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-26250\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Souad Massi and her band during a standing ovation after her Montpellier show in 2023 (photo Jordan Elgrably).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Massi has a massive fan base across the Arab world and Europe, and many admirers in the United States, but unfortunately, she hasn\u2019t toured the US as much as she would like.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy reluctance to go touring in the United States,\u201d she explains, \u201cis due to the fact that I don&#8217;t like the way we&#8217;re questioned. I don&#8217;t like the way we are equated with terrorists or terrorism. This is something that really revolts me, I who suffered from fundamentalism in Algeria, I find it really unfair. And unfortunately, the rise of racism and xenophobia is a phenomenon that has evolved at the same time in Europe. I have the impression that it is as if there is a general roadmap: every time there is an election, an enemy must be created. And the enemy is the other, the one who does not speak the same language as us. And that can become very dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Massi is the sort of artist you\u2019d like to invite over for dinner, not only because you know she\u2019d get along with your friends, but because she has a thoroughly calming effect on those around her. Even as she performed live on stage at Montpellier\u2019s Op\u00e9ra, rocking a dozen songs with her quintet of master musicians, Massi conveyed calm, beauty and majesty in every composition. She sang an homage to freedom covering Johnny Cash and among the songs in her repertoire was a number dedicated to the Iranian women risking their lives for the \u201cWoman Life Freedom\u201d movement. At times Massi sang with a mesmerizing chant like a gnawa singer, mixing a mystical vibe with a rock rhythm, channeling a bit of Rachid Taha (bless his ghost). Massi\u2019s performance felt authentic and flawless throughout.<\/p>\n<p>The next time I come across wildflowers on my walks around the city and through the nearby countryside, I\u2019ll be thinking of her.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jordan Elgrably interviews the Algerian-French iconoclast about her first album after Covid and about why she&#8217;s devoted her life to 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