Gaïsha. Videoclip ‘Warakatan Wa Kalam' out now

"Hand me a pen and paper, to write for a people without a state", Gaïsha muses in ‘Warakatan Wa Kalam'. And what better weapon against silence than raising your voice, with a song in mother’s tongue.

On the 'Ana Aïcha' album, the Belgian-Moroccan singer meets members of some of Belgium’s most celebrated live bands (Echoes Of Zoo, Sylvie Kreusch, De Beren Gieren). She mixes her most intimate imagination with images and lessons from Arabic literature - at the heart of the ballad lies an ode to freedom, also termed 'Aïcha'.

This freedom is not just an object of allusions and hints. It runs through the album’s free-flowing sounds. Ghent's finest jazz and rock musicians conjure up dub rhythms and oriental brass play, in a measured whole that always leaves something to the imagination. In her music, Gaïsha questions the assumptions we make about ourselves and each other: yet in her singing, she sounds gentle and generous. With purity in her voice she floats around, inside and in between the themes of her text. She does this with pen in hand, and full of courage and hope for a truly loving world.

Gaïsha is one of the female acts that earned Zephyrus the Womex award of top 20 label of the year, and that is no coincidence: tenderly, she teases the boundaries of our thinking, proving that subtle music resonates the loudest.

Videoclip

Video by Grégoire Verbeke, shot analog in Super8 film