Sawt El Atlas

About the Artist

Sawt el Atlas (ôVoices of the Atlasö) blends traditional music with rai, reggae, funk and Latino beats. The original line-up of Sawt el Atlas consisted of three brothers from each of two families, the Mirghanis (originally from Southern Morocco) and the El Habchis (from Casablanca). They were later joined by four other musicians.

Lead singers Kamel and Mounir and their brothers grew up in the suburbs of Blois, in the center of France. They were just 12 when they started to tour the country in the early nineties with the support of the famous mayor of Blois, Jack Lang, who is also the former French Minister of Culture and founder of FranceÆs national day of music. Sawt el Atlas has played at many festivals in France, Holland and Germany (the Rennes Transmusicales, the La Rochelle Fancofolies, the Printemps de Bourges, the Arezzo Festival, the Tilburg Festival, the Roskilde Festival, etc.), and they have supported a number of major artists on tour (Massilia Sound System, Khaled, Cheb Mami, Keziah Jones, Tonton David, etc.). In 1996, after more than 200 performances, they released their first CD, entitled ôGeneraliser,ö a lively album swept along by its Arabic-French lyrics.