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Feature about Souad's previous album, Deb
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Chicago Tribune, Feature about Souad's previous album, Deb >>
"Massi Puts World of Chaos Into Song"
Algerian singer-songwriter Souad Massi says one experience during a 1990s tour still clearly resonates in her mind. She was performing across her country while a civil war was tearing the nation apart. Massi has been through chaos and destruction, but she was shocked when she arrived for a concert only to find that the town had been completely burnt.
"When you live in such circumstances, you go from being a child to a woman right away," Massi says from her home in Paris. "I saw the reality that I was facing in the country, and that reality shaped my music."
On an initial listen, Massi's recent "Deb" CD only hints at that turmoil. Her voice is quietly alluring as she accompanies herself on acoustic guitar, similar to myriad American folksingers. Flamenco vocal refrains, Indian tablas, and Middle Eastern strings and percussion enliven her melodic finesse. But after reading a translation of Massi's Arabic lyrics, the songs become vivid pictures of desolation.
"The worse injustices have been commited / I burst into tears / Walls have been built around me / And I've been buried alive" is from Massi's "Houria" (Freedom). Her depiction of romance is almost as dark.. "Deb" translates as "heartbroken".
The height of violence
Massi's sentiments are reflections of a generation that grew up in one of Algeria's most violent periods. Now 31, she survived the fighting among Islamic fundamentalists, government forces and inter-tribal antagonists. These atrocities are described in historian Benjamin Stora's book, "Algeria 1830-2000." Author Assia Djebar conveys the personal impact of the assasinations and massacres in her memoirs, "Algerian White."
"Half of the land of Algeria has just been seized by moving, terrifying and sometimes hideous shadows."
Early on, Massi frequented Algier's movie theaters to temporarily escape from those shadows. She especially liked Clint Eastwoods' westerns and from them made a consious link to American country and folk music. Her uncle was a classical guitarist who was also devoted to flamenco. Massi studied his instrument when she was a teenager, and her brother helped pay for the lessons. But not everyone in her family was thrilled when Massi began singing professionally around her 20th birthday.
"My father and mother were opposed to my career because in such a society its not necessarily viewed as a positive thing for a woman to sing or do music, so I had to fight for that," Massi says. "Being a woman with a guitar is seen as a provocation, so most of the times I had to walk around with my brother or my cousins."
For a while, Massi played in a flamenco group. Then she joined a hard rock band called Atakor. She did not consider this to be much of a stretch and still finds similarities between distant genres. Massi mentions Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" as an ideal mixture of proto-metal and the maghreb. But the shy and introspective singer also likes AC/DC and Metallica for more personal reasons.
"I couldn't express myself the way those performers did," Massi says. "So it was a comfort for me to see people sing out loud the way they do."
Because Massi was unsure of her future as a musician, she studied architecture and found a day job as a city planner. By 1999, Massi had quit music altogether when she was asked to perform at an Algerian women's festival in Paris. The singer found the support and freedom in France that Algeria lacked. She moved to the country and built an audience along with European label contacts. Her debut, "Raoui," was released in 2001.
As an expatriate in a cosmopolitan city, Massi says she's been able to make friends and collaborate with musicians from throughout the world. She wrote "Yemma" when she realized how much they all share. The song is about telephoning - and having to lie to - a long distant parent. At the same time, she continues to delve into her Arabic heritage, especially through reading 13th century poets.
"It was a time where they don't speak of the contemporary things that we do, but they always had these themes that are always contemporary, like love," Massi says. "And it's inspiring because they also used lots of metaphor."
Looking forward to U.S. music
Next week, Massi will being her take on modern Arabic culture to North America for the first time. Otis Redding's "Dock of the bay" is still her favorite song, but Massi says she's looking forward to hearing more contemporary American tunes during this tour. She is also aware that touring in the United States at this time has implications that go beyond music.
Massi was outspoken in her opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, but she knows that her audiences in this country would also tend to disagree with President Bush's foreign policy. She also challenges what she sees as frequently shallow reports in such American media as cable news networks.
"There is a small part of the U.S. population that regards all Arabs as terrorists," Massi says. "I'm sad about that because I've had to deal with terrorism since I was a kid."
One way that Massi defies such perceptions is though the collaborations that she enjoys within her group. If Arabs are usually shown on American television as remaining in closed socieities (even in European capitals), her band defies this image. Algeria, France, Hungary, Senegal and New Guinea are represented among the musicians as well as the different styles that bring to Massi's sound.
"Each person puts an idea in, and it makes my music more rich and colorful," Massi says. "Just looking at the band and seeing the obvious differences among the members, it's a lesson in living in harmony with one another." 07/02/04
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