Lounis Ait Menguellet

Lounis Aït Menguellet (17 January, 1950) was born in Ighil Bouammas in the Djurdjura mountains, near Tizi-Ouzou and is a Berber singer from Kabylie, Algeria, who sings in the Berber language, Kabyle. Lounis Aït Menguellet is certainly one of the most popular and charismatic artists of the contemporary Kabyle music scene.

He is a poet-musician who has become something of a symbol of the Kabyle demands for recognition. Kabylie has been the setting for many fierce confrontations. Although Lounis’s songs are frequently about Kabylie and its history and its present suffering and misery, he is always quick to state that he isn’t a politician and he doesn’t get involved in politics. However, few can deny the political clout of his songs or their political and sometimes very biting and critical messages.

Many critics of Lounis Aït Menguellet's career like to see it as two distinct parts and because that is a generally accepted view it will be the one offered here. The first part is seen as being centred on the production of love songs and nostalgia. Frequently there are references to a lost love. The songs tend to be shorter than he produces today. Typical songs from this period are "Thalt Ayam" (Three Days) and "Tayri" (Love). The second part of his career is characterised by longer songs which demand close reading and interpretation – for example the beautiful and tragic "Akw nikhdaa rebbi" (Be cursed).

Recordings

His latest album is "Yenna-d Umghar" (The Wise Man Has Spoken). This is characterised by more complex music and a much more careful presentation of lyrics in Kabyle, French and Arabic with a brief summary in English. The Lounis of "Yenna-d Umghar" is a far cry from the Lounis of the early work which is now quite hard to come by. The Lounis of "Yenna-d Umghar" is more perhaps accessible to European ears, at once alien and familiar. It is indeed a beautiful work, made all the more effective once the poetry is understood. When he presented his latest album on 16th January 2005 at the Maison de la Culture, Tizi Ouzou, on the occasion of his 55th birthday, he said that the artist could only draw people’s attention to their lives and appeal to their consciences. He added that it was still a mission and he didn’t consider himself capable of bringing solutions to the problems.

Poetry

Despite the fact that Lounis continues to sing about the plight of Kabylie, his poetry has universality that transports it beyond the topical protest song to something far more enduring. He talks of situations and conflicts which are only too familiar to those outside of Kabylie. He may indeed be a poet for Kabylie but his poetry is at the same time universal and enduring.

It is this universality that makes it speak to the world. It is difficult to offer an effective parallel for anglophones but the closest is perhaps Bob Dylan though Lounis’s attitude to the role of the song is perhaps more akin to that of Joan Baez. Lounis’s culture is an oral one so the song in Kabyle culture acts more like the newspaper and the leaflet of European protest. Even today when more and more Kabyle are able to read and write their language rather than reading and writing in French, this aspect is still present in Lounis’s songs. The fact that his songs are now accompanied by the lyrics is an acknowledgement of the new-found written aspect of Kabyle and the presence of the translations indicates that Lounis himself is aware that his poetry has a universal application as well as being a means to publicise the plight of Kabylie to a wider audience.

Sample Lyrics

Voyager of the Night (Imminig gg-id')

If you know this is your path
If you know the goal you seek
Leave, closing the door behind
You won’t return; do not weep
Hear your steps echo in the night
That sound you learn to feel.
Night’s monster follows as of right
One of you must trot at heel
Fear is your guardian or your traitor
To the place you believed once right
Ninety nine bullets and the last awaits you
Voyager of the night.

If the storm decides to spare you
If at the end you too still thrive
Give them the news about us.
Tell them of our wretched lives
One knee bent to the ground so low
Awaiting the decision of its fellow
Time must pass before we know
If it will rise up or the other will follow
Take care at the break of day
It is likely the critical point
Ninety nine bullets and the last awaits you
Voyager of the night.

If you stand at the end then tell them
All that has been reckoned so far
How the saints still listen to our hymn
But refuse to answer our prayers
But still we wait here patiently
For their benediction’s return
Just as the hands fall in final blessing
We deny ourselves the proffered response.
Tell them that our hope is sick
And in its frailty will us forget.
Ninety nine bullets and the last awaits you
Voyager of the night.

At that certain point in time
The tempest stole you away
The voice of peace snuffed out.
No one will heed your tale this day
Born in an evening of flame
You live only one short night.
Till darkness swallowed your name
And so you have fallen at dawn
Have died without seeing the sun,
Leaving behind no hope in sight.
Ninety nine bullets and the last falsely takes you
Voyager of the night.

Bibliography

*Tassadit Yacine, « Aït Menguellet chante », Préface de Kateb Yacine, Paris, la Découverte, 1989.
*Mohammed Djellaoui, « L’image poétique dans l’œuvre de Lounis Aït Menguellet - Du patrimoine à l’innovation » (Essai) - Éditions Les Pages Bleues, Alger, 2005.

Links

Wikipedia in French has a more detailed article on Lounis Ait-Menguellet. This article is based on the French version.