The artistic scene in Algeria mourns the loss of one of its artists. Hasna El Bacharia, the icon of Gnawa and Diwane, died at the age of 74, leaving behind a career that she dedicated to music without borders.
Born in 1950, Hasna El Bacharia, sometimes nicknamed the Rocky of the Desert, is a free woman and an important figure in Gnawi, or diwane, music. She is the first musician to cross the social barriers of this culture and embodies an example for women who inspires them by reappropriating a musical genre traditionally reserved for men.
Who is Hasna El Bacharia, the desert rocker?
Hasna El Bacharia is also a unique artist who uses her music to encourage women to redefine their role in society and challenge cultural norms. Daughter of one of the masters of the highly codified diwan, Hasna El Becharia has long only played for her own people, refusing to broadcast her music beyond its “natural” borders.
Throughout her career, she has played many instruments, including the guembri, a plucked string instrument, which her father forbade her to play when she was young, but also the mandola, the banjo, the oud , harmonica, electric guitar…
His talent revealed among women earned him a quick invitation to weddings around Béchar, via Oran, Algiers and Casablanca. In nearly thirty years of local fame, she has not recorded a single album and performed for the first time in France in 1999.
In 2001, she released her first album, called “Djazair Djawhara”, published under the Bleu Indigo label, in which she recorded timeless melodies which mix with Diwane tunes.
