Natacha Atlas

Natacha Atlas (born March 20, 1964) is a singer born in Belgium. She is known for her fusion of Arabic and North African music.

Solo Career

Now TGU has a new lead singer, it also focuses on African sounds rather than the East. Nevertheless, TGU continue producing tracks for Natacha Atlas. Most of all of Nat's albums have been produced by TGU. Nat always focused on and continues to focus on her Eastern roots, as the titles of her albums imply: "Diaspora" (1995), "Halim" (1997) (in honour of Egyptian singer Abdel Halim Hafez), "Gedida" (1998) and "Ayeshteni" (2001). In an interview with French mag "L'affiche", Natacha stated that she's very interested in her roots; and that's why she sings in Arabic, to find her identity and to reconnect with her roots. Nevertheless, she also likes modern music like Salsa or Reggae. ("Je m'interesse énormément à mes origines. C'est pour cela que je chante en arabe, pour trouver mon identité et me reconnecter avec mes racines. D'un autre côté, j'aime les musiques modernes: la Salsa, le Reggae...") (3) Her father is quite pleased about that, and – Natacha continues – he even claims that the Atlas mountains gave their name to his family. ("(mon père) est fier de moi parce que je m'interesse à notre famille, d'où elle vient. Ce qui est mignon et marrant, c'est qu'il croit – ou du moins il rêve – que notre nom est lié à un ancien roi de Mauritanie. C'est celui qui d'une chaine de montagnes est c'est dejà ça!")

Related Topics:
Abdel Halim Hafez - Salsa - Reggae

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Due to French-language tracks – especially her adaptation of Françoise Hardy's "Mon ami la rose" – Natacha is now quite popular in France. In the UK, on the other hand, she hasn't had her breakthrough yet. Natacha hopes that this will change with her new version of Screamin' Jay Hawkins'

Related Topics:
Françoise Hardy - France

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"I Put A Spell On You". She is not very happy about the way her music is perceived in the UK: "Someone from the NME rang us about a feature we're to do with them and said 'We don't want it to be about the multi-cultural angle'. In other words that fad is over. And I'm personally insulted... what other... angle is there for us? I get sick of it all. (2)"

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