Natacha Atlas

Transglobal Underground was her name. She is now a well-known solo artist who combines Arabic and dance music. Belgian-born singer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and classical belly dancer Natacha Atlas is possessed of a throaty, expressive alto and offers a multilingual vocal approach to the fusion of Arabic and South Asian musics with Western styles, from electronica to pop to jazz standards. Her music is a combination of solo performances and well-documented collaborations (Peter Gabriel and Jean-Michel Jarre), and was influenced by her family’s Sephardic, Palestinian, and Egyptian heritages. Jah Wobble’s Invaders of the Heart released her hit album Rising Above Bedlam 1991, and it was the first time she was heard outside of Europe. Transglobal Underground was her world fusion electro group. Their dancefloor hit “Temple Head” was their first single. She was also the lead vocalist and bellydancer. She is an unrelenting experimenter. Her solo albums, which began with Diaspora’s 1995 downtempo fusion set, have charted all over the Arab world. She performed an Arabic fusion cover to Francoise Hardy’s pop song “Mon Amie en Rose”, which charted in Europe in 1998. Mish Maoul, her 2006 album, combines electronic and Arabic beats with Latin sounds and bossa Nova. She was the face of Ana Hina’s traditional Arabic Mazeeka Ensemble in 2008. With Riverman EP (2010), she took on British folk. It featured her chart-topping cover of Nick Drake’s iconic tune and a number of club remixes. She also explored jazz in 2016 with Myriad Road, which was produced by Ibrahim Maalouf and Eros, with Paolo Fresu, Omar Sosa, and Omar Sosa. Since then, she has performed with old friends in Transglobal Underground and continued to record on her own. Strange Days was released in 2019. Atlas, a Brussels-born girl, is the daughter of an English mother. Her father was Sephardic Jewish. Atlas was raised in a Moroccan suburb of Brussels, and was heavily influenced from the Arabic culture. Atlas learned French, Spanish and English as well as Arabic. She was also trained in traditional belly dancing techniques, raq sharki. Atlas, a Northampton-based Arabic rock singer, was a teenager who moved to England. Atlas split her time between England, Brussels and both Arabic and Turkish clubs, and briefly appeared with Mandanga, a Belgian salsa group. She was a part of England’s alternative rock scene in the early ’90s and appeared on!Loca! She was featured on Apache Indian’s single, “Timbal”, and Jah Wobble’s album Rising Above Bedlam. Five of her songs were also recorded. Atlas accepted an invitation to join Transglobal Underground, where she was featured as a lead singer and bellydancer. As well as co-writing and singing three songs from Wobble’s 1994 album Take Me To God, she continued her work with Wobble. Atlas’ 1995 debut solo album Diaspora featured the accompaniment of Walid Rouissi, a Tunisian singer/songwriter, and Essam Rashad, an Egyptian composer and oud player. Gedida followed in 1999, and Halim in 1997. Atlas collaborated with David Arnold, the soundtrack composer for Stargate by Kurt Russell. She released a collection remixes in 2000. The following spring, Ayeshteni was released. Something Dangerous was released in 2003 with a more pop-oriented sound. In 2005, she released the career-spanning Best of Natacha Atlas. This was also the year that she became a cultural ambassador to the United Nations. One year later, Mish Maoul was released as a tribute to the Moroccan music she had grown up listening to. Atlas was the frontman of the traditional Arabic Mazeeka Ensemble, which Samy Bishai led on Ana Hina’s World Village title in 2008. Mounqaliba For Six Degrees 2010, co-produced and inspired by Rabindranath Tagore’s poems, was produced by Samy Bishai. It included original work as well as covers of songs by Francoise Hardy, Nick Drake and others. Jocelyn Pook and Zoe Rahman were the album’s composers. It was followed by two remix EPs: Mounqaliba Rising The Remixes u0026 Riverman. She reunited Transglobal Underground for a tour and collaborated in the co-billed Les Nuits. She teamed up with Ibrahim Maalouf to create Myriad Road, her first collection containing jazz tunes two years later. It was performed at festivals in Europe and Asia by her band. She collaborated with Omar Sosa and Paolo Fresu, pan-cultural jazzmen, on Eros, alongside the Quartetto Alborada string ensemble from Italy and Jaques Morelenbaum, a Brazilian arranger, conductor and composer. The first single was a cover version of Massive Attack’s “Teardrop”, with a jazz-classical arrangement. She and Bishai co-composed 2019’s score for Odyssey, Herve Koubi’s contemporary dance creation. In September, Strange Days was released on Whirlwind Recordings. The album was recorded in Brazil, France, and the U.K. The pair co-produced Strange Days. Their originals and covers incorporated jazz, bossa Nova, Arabic, Carnatic, and bossa nova music. Joss Stone performed the lead single, a cover James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s World,” in duet. Reedsman Idris Rasman, guitarist Paulo Vinicius and vocalists Tanya Wells, Sofiane Saidi were also guests. Allmusic

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