Emel Mathlouthi
Live Ideas: Emel Mathlouthi
OFFSITE at Lycée Francais, 505 East 75th Street, New York, NY, 10021
Presented by the LFNY Cultural Center in Association with New York Live Arts’ Live Ideas: MENA/Future & Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie
Firebrand Tunisian singer, songwriter, and composer Emel Mathlouthi has been called “The Voice of the Tunisian Revolution.” An inheritor of the legacy of American and Arabic protest singers of the 1960’s, she is considered one of the great divas of the Arab World. She gained attention when her song “Kelmti Horra (My Word is Free)” was adopted by the Arab Spring revolutionaries and soon became like an anthem throughout the region. Mathlouthi is devoted to her Tunisian folk roots but deeply influenced by such Western artists as Joan Baez, Massive Attack, Bjork and her sometime-collaborator Tricky. Her gorgeous, intricate sound moves between rock, trip-hop and electronica, all interlaced with classical Arabic tradition. Her delicate and rousing songs express love, suffering and longing for home in a deeply confessional style that verges on sacred Sufi music and an idiom that would not be out of place in the discos of Europe or America.
You can watch Mathlouthi’s recent performance at the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize Concert HERE.