WOMAD

Cherifa

From Morocco

Isolation isn’t always a bad thing. Take the music of the Moroccan Berber singer Cherifa, for instance. As a teenage shepherdess, she absorbed and sang the old-as-the-Atlas-Mountains music of her forebears while tending to her herd, soon becoming a big favourite in her home region at all manner of social occasions. But it wasn’t until she was into her thirties that she first visited Europe, singing in Paris as part of a Moroccan festival at the Théåtre des Bouffes du Nord. An album, Berber Blues, soon followed, a deep and absorbing set that allowed these old songs to breathe a few lungfuls of 21st-century air. Not that this poetic music comes with anything like the stamp of this millennium – the raw and haunting combination of voice, lutar lute and percussion remain ageless. Backed by her regular trio of musicians, Cherifa’s voice stops you in your tracks, loaded with despair, regret and heartbreak. Damn right she’s got the blues.Catch This If You Like… Tartit or Cheikha Rimitti