Natacha Atlas – The Queen of Arab-Pop

Managing these days to combine Islamic traditions with Western attitudes is already no small feat. Doing so while also achieving admirable artistic results verges on the heroic. Natacha Atlas has pulled it off with ease for years, since the days when she was the chanteuse of Transglobal Underground, one of the most significant forces in 90s ethno-dance crossover. But it's above all as a solo artist that the Belgian-Egyptian singer, composer and dancer has truly hit the mark, with a sonic Babel capable of captivating both the musical ethnologist and the nightclub regular. A daring hybrid, warmed by a sinuous vocal style that has also earned her prestigious collaborations (from Jocelyn Pook to Franco Battiato) and the award for Best Female Artist at the Victoire de la Musique Awards, the French equivalent of the Grammys. And the distinctiveness of her "mission" didn't escape Irish President Mary Robinson either, who in 2001 named her ambassador to the UN Conference against racism. Dancer, singer, composer: Natacha Atlas knows no boundaries. Neither artistic nor geographic. It was she herself, after all, who, during a tour in Israel, described herself as "a human Gaza Strip", to explain the complex variety of peoples and cultures that have shaped her.

The daughter of a Sephardic Jew of Egyptian origin and an Englishwoman, Atlas, who today lives in Washington, grew up in a Moroccan neighborhood of Brussels, quickly learning French, Arabic, Spanish and English. It was there that she learned the "raq sharki" technique of belly dancing, which she still performs in her concerts, sending audiences into a frenzy. But even more than her dancing, it's her voice that impresses, covering all the tonal richness of Arabic tradition while managing to be moving, immediate and evocative all at once. A style halfway between typical Middle Eastern singing and the dreamlike vocalizing of Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins. "She sings like a nightingale perched on a cup of diamonds," the British magazine Melody Maker wrote of her. The Egyptian-Belgian singer's magic formula is the fruit of years of cross-contamination, starting from when Natacha, as a teenager, moved to England and became Northampton's first Arab rock singer. Then, splitting her time between England and Belgium, she went on singing in countless Turkish and Arab nightclubs, with the exception of a brief stint in a Belgian salsa band, Mandanga.

But it was her English collaborations that opened the door for her, especially the one with Transglobal Underground, whom Atlas joined as lead singer and belly dancer at various international festivals, from Glastonbury to Womad, the world-music event conceived by Peter Gabriel. With the band she also recorded two albums, Dream Of 100 Nations and International Times.

Her solo debut Diaspora and the follow-up Halim launched her sensual, pan-ethnic crossover sound onto the world stage, ranging from Arabic folk to pop, dance, dub and trip-hop pulses. But it's with the album Gedida, an evocative musical journey from North Africa towards Europe, that Miss Atlas truly reached her artistic maturity. With a brand-new, disruptive osmosis between East and West. "A kind of 'Islamic pop' - writes critic Roberto Gatti - in which the age-old vocal psalmodies of Arabia gracefully copulate with urban rhythm machines, and instruments of the purest tradition - the oud, the bouzouki, the tablas, the dulcimer, the riqq, the bendir - alternate with tremendous naturalness alongside the scratching of the coolest DJs from across the Channel."

In this crossroads of sounds and languages, true gems shine through, like the single "Mistaneek", a fascinating fusion of dance pulses and Middle Eastern suggestions, or the Franco-Arabic ballad "Mon Amie La Rose", which - Natacha explains - is "a reworking in my own way, in the form of a lament, of a very delicate song performed by Françoise Hardy more than thirty years ago".

The songs on Gedida are light, impalpable ballads, singing above all of love, feeling and timeless emotions. On her musical style, the diminutive Natacha - 156 centimetres including heels, stunning green eyes, statuesque curves befitting any true belly-dancer - has very clear ideas: "Some have called this mix 'new raï', indirectly linking it to what Khaled, Cheb Mami, Rachid Taha and Bellemou Messaoud do: but I don't agree with that at all," she maintains. "In fact, whether for family reasons or deep personal feelings, I'm much closer to an Egyptian way of seeing things than an Algerian one. That's why I spend all my free time between tours in Cairo: to keep improving my knowledge of the Arabic language and music. That's why my favourite reference points are the great singers of the Egyptian tradition that predates 'shaabi'. People who could interact perfectly well with 'my' Western icons: Sinead O'Connor, Asian Dub Foundation and, above all, Björk, a chanteuse I'd love to collaborate with in the future".

On her fourth solo outing, Natacha Atlas once again amazes with her daring contaminations between Arabic folk and European pop. Ayeshteni, too, is a borderline, polyglot record, rich in nuances and musical textures. With her enchanting green eyes and statuesque belly-dancer curves, the Egyptian-Belgian artist once again showcases a unique voice, capable of floating freely from a trip-hop-flavoured tribute to the French tradition, with Jacques Brel's "Ne Me Quitte Pas", to an astonishing cover of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I Put A Spell On You", drenched in a sea of Egyptian strings and driven by a hip hop beat. These are risky ventures, the kind that other voices might sink into kitsch, but Natacha Atlas's singing remains always elegant and at the same time unpredictable, full of endless suggestions and vocal range.

What really drives the rhythm of the album, though, are above all the tracks in Arabic: from the seductive "Ashwa" to the hyper-stretched "Mish Fadilak", from the hypnotic melody of "Rah" to the electronic dance of "Manbai". A progression into the most sensual soul of Middle Eastern music, combined with a pronounced taste for sophisticated pop, for the dub basslines so dear to Transglobal Underground (who produced one of the tracks, "Soleil D'Egypte", a cover of a song by Zebda) and for the most obsessive percussion.

While there's sometimes a risk of repetitiveness lurking, what remains is still the allure of this borderless sonic journey, carried along by a spectacular voice like Natacha Atlas's.

In the meantime, Natacha Atlas has become one of the most sought-after vocalists on the international scene, as confirmed by her appearance on Franco Battiato's album "Ferro Battuto". But her greatest wish is for her records to be "listened to and distributed in Egypt too", where for now, despite a few timid openings in recent years, "talking about these matters is still forbidden". Foretold In The Language Of Dreams (2002) is a collaboration with composer Marc Eagleton (Temple of Sound). Natacha Atlas puts her evocative vocalisations at the service of an exotically electronic formula, but the album doesn't add much of significance to her body of work.

The sinuous electronics of "Daymalhum" and "Janamaan" drive Something Dangerous (2004), a new polyglot melange (in Arabic, English and French), blending an Arabic-tinged dancey rhythm with pop and r'n'b. The formula, however, is starting to show its age, and Atlas seems to have lost the thread of her musical discourse. The intense cover of James Brown's "It's A Man's World" nonetheless confirms the extraordinary vocal gifts of the former Transglobal Underground singer.

There are two main developments on Mish Maoul (2006). On one hand, a return to her roots, with the trip-hop beat toned down in favour of reviving traditional Moroccan music and the legacy of the taiwid, the chanters of the Quran. On the other, a further expansion of her sonic horizon, with nods to hip-hop rhythms and Brazilian bossa nova. Exoticism triumphs, with songs almost entirely in Arabic, built more on texture than on catchy refrains. Hence the exploration of a refined North African cool on the opening "Oully" - languid phrases of nay (the Egyptian flute) and a fine vocal duet with Sofiane Saidi - or the hushed, saudade-tinged Middle Eastern ambient of "Bab El Janna", awash with strings and celestial singing, and of "Wahashni", where simple handclapping keeps the beat beneath Atlas's vocal melismas, punctuated by Abdullah Chadeh's qanun.

But it's in whirling desert dances like "Hayati Inta", "Bathaddak" and "Haram Aleyk" that the theatrics of the Brussels-born belly-dancer fully come into their own, unleashing the sensual charge that made her famous, amid a casbah of percussion and Berber chants. The track that stays most in touch with Bristol-style trip-hop is "La Lil Knowf", where Natacha's singing finds a male counterpoint in Clotaire K and Sofiane Saidi, beneath a now tighter beat. The two tracks that "dare" the most, however, have a mixed outcome: while "Ghanwah Bossanova" admirably blends Middle Eastern timbres with Brazilian softness, the attempted embrace of the hip-hop universe on "Feen" (featuring Princess Juliana) crumbles around a bland chorus and a formulaic r'n'b groove. The album closes fittingly with the acoustic embroidery of "Yariet", amid shimmering strings and vocal arabesques.

The sonic exploration sometimes suffers from artificiality - which, for an album billed as a return to roots, is no small flaw. And there's no track capable of delivering the knockout blow to the listener. So it won't be that "incredible" album the title might suggest, but Mish Maoul still offers further proof of Mademoiselle Atlas's mesmerising powers, the most skilful snake-charmer of contemporary ethno-pop.

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