49 f
Danto Aya, Amira Kheir
Heading North I
The UK’s multi-cultural music scene plays host to immigrants from all over the world. Jamie Renton checks out four representatives of North Africa.
’m off on a great adventure in search of the finest North African music. Teeming souks, breathtaking desert landscapes, centuries-old mosques, their majestic minarets glistening in
the burning sun… these are just some of the things I won’t be encountering as I go about my quest. That’s because North African music of the highest quality is available right here on our doorstep, in the UK. Ah well, it’s a good thing I didn’t take up this writing lark with the expec- tation of glamorous travel opportunities.
“We perform to all kinds of audi- ences,” explains Karim Delali, darbucka player and front-man with the Anglo-Alge- rian group El Andaluz, “but I think our best gigs are when we’re playing for the local Algerian community.” And if you’ve ever seen a North African crowd responding to
Hassan Erraji, El Andaluz
the roots music of their own culture, you’ll know why. Clapping, dancing, singing along and, as likely as not, a fair bit of ulu- lation will be the order of the day.
Of course, North Africa is really made
up of different, but sometimes interlinked cultures, all of which are represented in the UK. Fittingly, I meet three quarters of the El Andaluz quartet (oud player Yazid Fentazi and token-Brit violinist Frank Bid- dulph are with Karim, only bassist Hamid Bouri is absent) in Ladbroke Grove, just down the way from Golborne Road, one of the hubs of the UK North African com- munity and birthplace of the uniquely London-based linguistic mutation known as ‘Morockney’.
If the names of those involved in El Andaluz sound familiar, that’s because they’re also all members of longstanding
Algerian-meets-jazz ensemble Fantazia (see fR203). “El Andaluz is a way for us to explore the more traditional side of things than we do with Fantazia,” Karim tells me, “because with Fantazia it’s all about adding other elements to the traditional Algerian sound.” El Andaluz originally started working as a smaller unit a decade ago, when they were invited to perform in a film, as Frank explains: “They wanted a traditional North African band and dressed us up in white jackets!”
But their sound isn’t entirely tradition-
al. “It is different because we’re in Lon- don,” reckons Karim. “We go for a more groove-based sound… less formal.” So this little trad spin-off from the bigger band has taken on a life and stylistic mix all of its own, drawing on music from Macedonia and Turkey as well as North Africa.
Photo: Dawn Harris
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