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La Kahena [Enhanced]
ASIN: B00080Z75K
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
On his new CD, named for a 7th-century freedom fighter, the Algerian mixmaster DJ Chebi i Sabbah takes the music of the North Africa and Moorish Spain on a magic carpet ride that floats electronica/techno effects over Berber, Jewish, Black African, and Arab instruments and genres, with vocals by some of world music's most evocative female singers. The enchanting rai vocalist Cheba Zahouania is heard on the reggae influenced number, "Esh 'Dani, Alash Mshit." The Yemenite singer Michal Cohen adds her Semitic swing to the intoxicating "Im Ninalou," while the Moroccan group Haddarates sing in their mystical, Sufi-style on "Madh Assalhin." "Toura Toura," is motored by Brahim Elbelkani's Afrocentric, Gnawna tantric tempos and tones, and "Jarat Fil Hub" transports the listener back to the splendors of Andalusia via Cheb i Sabbah's wheels-of-steel alchemy, which easily moves Afro-Arab music across the sonic sands of time. --Eugene Holley, Jr.
Product Description
Cheb i Sabbah, one of Six Degrees' best selling artists, is known around the world for his ground-breaking South Asian trilogy, Shri Durga, Mahamaya: Shri Durga Remixed and Krishna Lila. Sabbah's heartfelt, spiritual approach to bringing music to the dance floor has established him as a highly respected international music producer, DJ and an influential pioneer of the underground.
On his long awaited new studio CD, La Kahena, the Algerian born Sabbah returns to the roots of his native North Africa gathering some of the most distinctive female singers from the Maghreb in a studio in Morocco. With tracks by vocalists from many different traditions of North Africa, La Kahena compellingly illustrates the diversity of this region. Tracks by traditional ensembles B'net Marrakech and Ouled Ben Aguida reflect Berber traditions. Khadija Othmani conveys the matrilineal noble culture of Algerian Tuaregs. The Gnawa master Brahim Elbelkani brings the spirit of sub-Saharan African mystic healers, originally brought to Morocco as slaves. Nadia introduces the first music Sabbah remembers hearing in his life, elegant, Andalusian songs performed at weddings and celebrations in Constantine, Algeria. And Cheba Zahouania delivers the freewheeling spirit of rai, a music born in the pleasure-loving port city of Oran, Algeria, where many Andalusians fled after their expulsion from Spain. To complete the collection, Michal Cohen, a Jewish singer of Yemenite descent, shares a song based on a poem by Shalom Shabazi, the 16th century Yemenite Jewish mystic.
Recorded in studios in Marrakech, San Francisco, New York and New Delhi, Sabbah finished the sessions by adding his own "dj Science" or modern aural magic to these performances, making La Kahena a truly original and ground-breaking project the likes of which only the artistic vision of Cheb i Sabbah could have created.
La Kahena,DJ Cheb I Sabbah,Six Degrees,Club/Dance,Dance Music,Ethnic Fusion,Indian,Int'l & World Music,Pop
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