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Artist
Aït Menguellet
12+ albums
kabylealgeriafolkAllalgerian
about
Lounis Aït Menguellet (born 17 January 1950 in Ighil Bouammas in the Djurdjura mountains, near Tizi-Ouzou) is a Berber singer from Kabylie, Algeria, who sings in the Berber language, Kabyle. Lounis Aït Menguellet is certainly one of the most popular and charismatic artists of the contemporary Kabyle music scene. He is a poet-musician who has become something of a symbol of the Kabyle demands for recognition. Kabylie has been the setting for many fierce confrontations. Although Lounis’s songs are frequently about Kabylie and its history and its present suffering and misery, he is always quick to state that he isn’t a politician and he doesn’t get involved in politics. However, few can deny the political clout of his songs or their political and sometimes very biting and critical messages. Despite the fact that Lounis continues to sing about the plight of Kabylie, his poetry has universality that transports it beyond the topical protest song to something far more enduring. He talks of situations and conflicts which are only too familiar to those outside of Kabylie. He may indeed be a poet for Kabylie but his poetry is at the same time universal and enduring. It is this universality that makes it speak to the world. It is difficult to offer an effective parallel for anglophones but the closest is perhaps Bob Dylan though Lounis’s attitude to the role of the song is perhaps more akin to that of Joan Baez. Lounis’s culture is an oral one so the song in Kabyle culture acts more
