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Malouma

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Malouma Mint El Meidah (Vorlage:Lang-ar, also simply Maalouma or Malouma, born 1960) is a Mauritanian singer and politician. Raised in the south-west of the country by parents versed in traditional music, she first performed when she was twelve, soon featuring in solo concerts. Her first song "Habibi Habeytou" harshly criticized how women were treated by their husbands. An immediate success, it caused an outcry from the traditional ruling classes. After being forced into marriage while still a teenager, Malouma had to give up singing until 1986. She developed her own style combining traditional music with blues, jazz, and electro. Appearing on television with songs addressing such forbidden topics as conjugal life, poverty and inequality, she was censored in Mauritania in the early 1990s but began to perform abroad by the end of the decade. After the ban was finally lifted in 2005, she relaunched her singing and recording career, gaining popularity, particularly among the younger generation. Her fourth album, Knou (2014) once again includes lyrics expressing her views on human rights and women's place in society.

Side-by-side with her singing, Malouma Meidah has also fought to safeguard her country's music, urging the government to create a music school, forming her own foundation in support of musical heritage, and in 2014 creating her own music festival. She has also been active in politics since the 1990s, when she began to campaign for more democracy. She was elected a senator in 2007, the first politician in her caste, but was arrested the following year after a coup d'état. When elections were again held in 2009, she became a senator for the opposition Ech-Choura party where she was given special responsibilities for the environment. This led in 2011 to her appointment as the IUCN's Goodwill Ambassador for Central and West Africa. In December 2014, she announced she was moving from the opposition to join the ruling party, the Union for the Republic, where she felt she could be more effective in contributing to the country's progress. Her work has been recognized by the French, who decorated her as a Knight of the Legion of Honor, and the Americans, who named her Mauritanian Woman of Courage.

Early life

Mauritania
A street in Rosso, southwestern Mauritania

Malouma Mint Moktar Ould Meidah was born in Mederdra in the the Trarza Region of south-western Mauritania, on October 1, 1960, the year the country gained independence from France.Vorlage:Sfn Born into a griot family,Vorlage:Sfn she grew up in the little village of Charatt, just south of Mederdra in the deserts of West Africa.Vorlage:Sfn Her father, Mokhtar Ould Meidah, was a celebrated singer, tidinet player and poetVorlage:Sfn while her grandfather, Mohamed Yahya Ould Boubane, is remembered as a talented writer and tidinet virtuoso.Vorlage:Sfn Her mother also came from a family of well-known traditional singers.Vorlage:Sfn She taught her daughter to play the ardin, a ten-stringed harp traditionally played by women, when she was six.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn

She began elementary school in Mederdra in 1965 and qualified as an elementary school teacher in 1974 in Rosso. According to the traditions of her country, those of the Meidah family are required to carry on the art of their ancestors. As a result, she had to give up her aspirations to teach.Vorlage:Sfn Members of each caste are allowed only to marry other members of society within the same caste and the entire society is divided by castes politically, economically, and culturally. Movement outside of a particular caste is forbidden.Vorlage:Sfn She learned to play the traditional stringed instruments only women play, like the ardin harp, and was taught traditional Mauritanian music by her father.Vorlage:Sfn Her father enjoyed an eclectic mix of music and she grew up listening to classical western works such as Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart,Vorlage:Sfn VivaldiVorlage:Sfn and Wagner as well as music from traditional Berber, Egyptian, Lebanese and Senegalese artists. She often accompanied her parents who sang traditional griots.Vorlage:Sfn

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She began singing as a child, first performed on the stage when she was twelve and began appearing in solo concerts with a traditional repertoire by age fifteen.Vorlage:Sfn She was inspired not only by her father but by other traditional artists including Oum Kalthoum, Abdel Halim Hafez, Fairouz, Dimi and Sabah. As she matured, she also became increasingly interested in blues music which somewhat resembles the traditional music she knew.Vorlage:Sfn Malouma wrote her first song, "Habibi Habeytou" (My beloved, I loved him) when she was sixteen.Vorlage:Sfn It was a song protesting the tradition of men turning their wives out of their homes to marry younger women. It brought her instant recognition and backlash including physical attacks in the traditional Muslim country.Vorlage:Sfn Soon after she wrote it, her family moved to the capital of Nouakchott to help her launch her music career,Vorlage:Sfn but in the strongly traditional society, Malouma was forced to marry and leave singing until the late 1980s.Vorlage:Sfn She was initially accused by her father of ruining his reputation, not only with her music but with two divorces to her name: her first husband had been forced upon her, the second came from a noble family who would not allow her to sing. However, after hearing one of her songs, her father commented: "You have created something new and I find it touching. Unfortunately, I will not live long enough to be able to protect you."Vorlage:Sfn

Music career

Background

She made her first major appearance in 1986 with her fusion style, which combines traditional interpretations with more modern developments including blues, jazz, and electro.Vorlage:Sfn Her early songs "Habibi habeytou", "Cyam ezzaman tijri" and "Awdhu billah", which openly addressed love, conjugal life and the inequalities between men and women, contrasted strongly with what was considered acceptable in her home country. Nevertheless, they had strong popular appeal, especially for young women. Malouma carefully developed her own musical style, blending traditional themes with the rich repertoire and instrumentation of modern popular music.Vorlage:Sfn Typically Malouma has based her compositions on the traditions of classical Arab poets, such as Al-Mutanabbi and Antarah ibn Shaddad, whose verses cover political criticism, personal sacrifice and support for the weak and oppressed.Vorlage:Sfn She has also drawn on traditional Mauritanian themes, modernizing both the lyrics and musical presentation.Vorlage:Sfn

Mike Del Ferro and Malouma performing at the US embassy for students from the University of Nouakchott

From the beginning, Malouma sang in a variety of languages, including traditional Arabic, Hassania (Mauritanian Arabic), French and Woloff.Vorlage:Sfn By singing in various languages, she hoped to ensure her message reached a broader audience.Vorlage:Sfn It was not long before she, her sister, Emienh, and her brother, Arafat, an instrumentalist, appeared on television. Their style was controversial, especially after the release of her song "Habibi Habeytou" and a 1988 appearance at the Carthage Festival in Tunis, because she addressed social issues, such as poverty, inequality and disease.Vorlage:Sfn Her participation in the Carthage festival meant that she later appeared on Arab satellite channels, giving her greater exposure.Vorlage:Sfn Malouma became nationally known and was a sought after performer until a 1991 song about freedom of speech.Vorlage:Sfn She was censored for writing songs about women's rights and about challenging apartheid.Vorlage:Sfn She was subsequently banned from appearing on television and radio, holding concerts, and was even denied a permanent address.Vorlage:Sfn She did not perform anywhere for a lengthy periodVorlage:Sfn but in the late 1990s she began to sing in other African countries,Vorlage:Sfn in Europe,Vorlage:Sfn and in the United States.Vorlage:Sfn While she won audiences among the people, she was persecuted by both the moral authorities and authoritarian governments, her music being banned until the overthrow of the Ould Taya regime in 2005.Vorlage:Sfn

The traditional griots are songs of praise, but Malouma used her voice to speak out against child marriages, against racial and ethnic discrimination, against slavery and many other divisive issues facing a country at the crossroads of the Arab world and Africa.Vorlage:Sfn She also sang about illiteracy, HIV/AIDS awareness and in support of children's vaccinations.Vorlage:Sfn

Albums and bands

Datei:Traditional African musical instruments.jpg
Traditional Mauritanian instruments
Moroccan bendir
Djembe goblet drum

Her first album, Desert of Eden was released by Shanachie Records in 1998. When it was produced, Malouma felt that the traditional elements were taken out during production resulting in "bland electronic pop",Vorlage:Sfn though it received good reviews from JazzTimes.Vorlage:Sfn In the early 2000s, she began working with a group called the Sahel Hawl Blues made up of ten young Mauritian musicians of different ethnic origins (Moor, Fula, Toucouleur, Sonike, Wolof and Haratin), demonstrating her desire to overcome racial differences. In so doing, she was also able to extend music based on the traditional string instruments of the Moors to include the beat of the djembe, the darbouka, and the bendir frame drum. The group supported her desire to modernize traditional music, making it more accessible to the wider world.Vorlage:Sfn They toured with her in 2004 and 2005Vorlage:Sfn and worked with her on her second album, Dunya (meaning Life), which sought to reclaim her musical heritage. Produced by Marabi Records in 2003, the album contained twelve songs which blended harps, lutes and skin drums with electric guitar and bass, and traditional genres like serbat, which usually focuses on a single minor chord, with jazz.Vorlage:Sfn

Her album, Nour was released in France on 8 March 2007 in celebration of International Women's Day.Vorlage:Sfn Produced by Marabi/Harmonia Mundi, the album featured a broad mix of music from lullabies to dance music. Malouma's singing was supported by a group of fifteen studio musicians on a variety of electronic and traditional instruments.Vorlage:Sfn Reviews were mixed,Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn but the CD ranked as number 14 on the World Music Charts Europe by September 2007.Vorlage:Sfn After a hiatus from music to focus on politics, Malouma relaunched her musical career on October 5, 2014. Dressed in a blue toga, she presented her new album, Knou at a special event, appearing on stage for the first time since her election seven years earlier.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn She chose to call it "Knou", a dance usually performed by women in western MauritaniaVorlage:Sfn and the album focused on traditional dancing melodies,Vorlage:Sfn but bridged generations by adding modern twists. Weaving jazz, rock and reggae rhythms, into the traditional songs, it was well received.Vorlage:Sfn

Music festivals

Music festival appearances have been a large part of Malouma's career. The first time she participated in an international festival was in Carthage, Tunisia in 1988; her performance proved to be highly successful.Vorlage:Sfn After a gap of several years, in August 2003 she appeared at the Festival des Musiques Métisses in Angoulême, France, combining traditional Moorish music with a more modern approach in numbers from her album Dunya. She was not only selected as "artiste de l'année", (artist of the year) but was nicknamed "Diva des Sables" (Diva of the Sands).Vorlage:Sfn Her success continued in October of the same year at the World Music Expo in Seville, Spain, where she was selected by the jury as a featured performer.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn. One of the highlights of Angoulême's Festival des Musiques Métisses had been the nostalgic "Mreïmida" which proved equally popular the following year at the Nouakchott Festival of Nomadic Music in her native Mauritania.Vorlage:Sfn In 2005, she toured in the United States with appearances in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Chicago, Illinois; Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts; Lafayette, Louisiana where she appeared in the Festival International de Louisiane; finishing up the tour in New York City.Vorlage:Sfn In 2007, Malouma participated in the 32nd Paléo Festival in Nyon, Switzerland, which focused on musicians from North Africa.Vorlage:Sfn The 2010 edition of the Førde International Folk Music Festival, held in Førde, Norway under the theme of "freedom and oppression", also featured Malouma.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn At the 2012 Festival International des Arts de l’Ahaggar in Abalessa, Algeria, she was chosen as one of the three artists to perform in the grand finale. Her performance was well received, with praise for the balance of instrumentals and vocals, the composition, and her performance with two back up vocalists.Vorlage:Sfn Her 2013 performance at the World of Music, Arts and Dance Festival (WOMAD) held in Wiltshire, England included a "Taste The World" event where performers not only sang, but prepared a dish from their country. Malouma's lamb-filled pancakesVorlage:Sfn were a highlight of the festival presenting an up-front and personal encounter with the musician to festival goers. Her second stage performance at the event also brought praise for her "rock-star" performance embracing modern music.Vorlage:Sfn In 2014, Malouma participated in the Meeting of the Arts of the Arab World Festival in Montpellier, France,Vorlage:Sfn as well as at the Festival Rhizomes, in Paris.Vorlage:Sfn

Politics

Malouma Meidah first became politically active as a member of the opposition party in 1992, speaking out against dictatorships and in favor of democratization.Vorlage:Sfn In 2007, in what was widely considered the first freely held and fair election in the country,Vorlage:Sfn she was elected to the Senate of Mauritania,Vorlage:Sfn as one of the six women senators in a legislature of 56 members.Vorlage:Sfn She was the first person from the musician iggawen caste to serve in politics.Vorlage:Sfn Shortly after she was elected, a coup d'état took place in Mauritania in 2008 and deposed the first democratically-elected head of state, Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi.Vorlage:Sfn Because she had written songs criticizing the coup, Malouma Meidah was arrested and over a thousand cassettes and CDs of her recordings were seized.Vorlage:Sfn After the coup, the leader, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, allowed elections to proceed with only minor delays. He was elected president in July 2009 and the Senate elections in which one-third of the members faced re-election also were held.Vorlage:Sfn The parliamentary opposition group, called "Ech-Choura", of which Malouma Meidah was a member and served as the First Secretary,Vorlage:Sfn constituted 12 members of the 56-member Senate after the 2009 election.Vorlage:Sfn She also served on the Parliamentary Group for the EnvironmentVorlage:Sfn and as 2nd Secretary of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Armed Forces.Vorlage:Sfn

In April 2014, Malouma Meidah announced she no longer felt she could keep up her political fight for democracy although she would continue to support cultural and environmental causes.Vorlage:Sfn Even so, her Knou lyrics included allusions to her favorite political causes: equality and rights for all, women's place in society, and education for the young, all under threat, as well as environmental protection. Referring to her political role as a senator for the opposition party Assembly of Democratic Forces, in August 2014 she commented: "I use my presence and speaking time in the chamber to extend the effect of my texts and my songs. Whenever I run into ministers or important personalities, I tell them what the people expect of them."Vorlage:Sfn She has also continued to speak out about issues such as Palestine and the Iraqi War in her songs.Vorlage:Sfn At a press conference on December 16, 2014, Malouma Meidah announced she was leaving the opposition and joining the ruling party, the Union for the Republic, on the grounds that she could participate more effectively in building Mauritania by standing behind the policies of the current leader Aziz.Vorlage:Sfn

Preservation work

In addition to her work in her music career and political activism, Malouma Meidah is involved in both environmental protection and cultural preservation projects.Vorlage:Sfn

Environmental activism

In 2009, Malouma Mediah was involved in a project which was aimed at eliminating slums in the country. Initially proposed to relocate 9,000 slum-dwelling families from the outskirts of the city into inner city neighborhoods, she urged that the infrastructures had to be prepared or unhealthy conditions would create greater risks than the proposed rewards.Vorlage:Sfn In August 2011, the International Union for Conservation of Nature appointed Malouma Meidah Goodwill Ambassador for Central and West Africa. The appointment required her to raise awareness of environmental problems with a view to introducing sustainable solutions. On her appointment she commented: "I am delighted at the confidence that IUCN just placed in me. I am deeply honored. I will do my best to fulfill this great responsibility."Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn In September 2012, she performed in a concert given during the 2012 IUCN World Conservation Congress held on Jeju Island, Republic of Korea.Vorlage:Sfn

Cultural preservation and conservation

Because the caste system limits creation of music to a few families, traditional music in Mauritania has belonged to a closed culture and had limited life. Since the families had no way to preserve their music, or record it, the music of a family died if there was no family member to pass their legacy to.Vorlage:Sfn Concerned that the musical traditions of the country were vanishing,Vorlage:Sfn in 2006, Malouma urged the government to create a school to preserve the country's music heritage, even introducing a measure to Parliament.Vorlage:Sfn In 2011, she created the Malouma Foundation in support of the preservation of the national musical heritage.Vorlage:Sfn The foundation aims to protect and preserve the Arab, African, and Berber roots of music in Mauritania and, to that end, is collecting and storing music from throughout the country to both preserve it and make it available for other uses, including education.Vorlage:Sfn Long concerned that the Moorish music traditions of her country were being replaced by the Malian and Moroccan music preferred by younger people,Vorlage:Sfn in 2014, she created a Mauritanian Music Festival.Vorlage:Sfn

When she produced Nour, Malouma collaborated with the painter, Sidi Yahia, hoping to create visual images to express and preserve cultural traditions. Eleven paintings resulted from the joint venture.Vorlage:Sfn In 2015, Malouma applied for and received a grant from the Arab Culture Fund and began speaking with musicians and artists to convince them to come together and record their music. The project aimed at collecting music from six artists and producing an album of their works. She continues to press for creation of a music school, though it would require that the taboo of passing on music outside of a family be broken.Vorlage:Sfn

Awards and recognition

Malouma Meidah receiving the 2015 Mauritanian Woman of Courage award

In 2003, she was selected by the jury as one of the World Music Expo (WOMEX) showcase artists.Vorlage:Sfn In 2005, she was selected by Charlie Gillett, noted BBC musicologist, for his 2005 selected compilation of highlighted songs CD.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn That same year, N'Diaye Cheikh, a Mauritanian filmmaker produced a documentary about her, entitled Malouma, diva des sables (Malouma, Diva of the Sands) with Mosaic Films, which won Best Documentary at the Festival of Dakar (Dakar, Senegal)Vorlage:Sfn and a 2007 Prize of Distinction from Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels (FIPA), held in Biarritz, France.Vorlage:Sfn The griot-artist community of Mauritania has also acclaimed her by calling her the "first true composer in Mauritania".Vorlage:Sfn She was a runner-up for the Middle East and North Africa in the 2008 BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music.Vorlage:Sfn

In 2013, Malouma Meidah was decorated as a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the French ambassador, acting on behalf of President Nicholas Sarkozy of FranceVorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn On January 20, 2015, Malouma Meidah, Mauritania's "singer of the people and Senator", was honored by the American Ambassador Larry André at a lunch attended by notable leaders, especially women, from the country's civil society. Presenting her with the Mauritanian Woman of Courage award, the ambassador noted her "exceptional courage and leadership in advocating human rights, women, gender equality and harmony amongst the cultural traditions of Mauritania".Vorlage:Sfn

Selected works

  • 1998, Desert of Eden (album), a mix of West-African and Arabic-Berber sounds, released in the West.Vorlage:Sfn
  • 2003, Dunya (album), 12 tracks, recorded on the Marabi label in Nouakchott; a mix of blues, rock, and traditional melodies from southern Mauritanian and Indo-Pakistani, all sung in Hassaniya ArabicVorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn
  • 2007, Nour (album), a collection of dance beats featuring electric guitars and traditional instrumentsVorlage:Sfn
  • 2008, Malouma received accolades for her blues song "Yarab" on the album Desert Blues 3—Entre Dunes Et Savanes released by Network MedienVorlage:Sfn
  • 2009, Malouma was a featured composer and vocalist on two songs, "Missy Nouakchott"Vorlage:Sfn and "Sable Émouvant"Vorlage:Sfn on the 2009 Ping Kong album by DuOud.Vorlage:Sfn
  • 2014, Knou (album), a collection of ethno-pop tunes woven through with traditional tidinit lute and ardin harp instrumentsVorlage:Sfn

See also

Portal: Pop music – Übersicht zu Wikipedia-Inhalten zum Thema Pop music

References

Citations

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Sources

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