Middle Eastern & North African Songs to Add to Your Playlist.

Need some new songs to spice up your playlist? Here are a couple of artists and tracks for you.

By Maria Karkour

1 of 4

Bab L' Bluz - Ila Mata

Bab L’ Bluz is a Moroccan band that merges Moroccan and French members, with Yousra Mansour as its lead vocalist. It is inspired by traditional Moroccan Gnawa music and Blues. The lyrics are sung in Arabic or in a Moroccan dialect. in this song Ila Mata- until when in Arabic- the band condemns any sort of discrimination and racism.

They are questioning the state of human connections and violence by conveying the idea that we should be finding what binds and unites us rather than what comes between us. The charismatic songs incapsulate so much depth when it comes to their expressive content while the music enables you to glide into all sorts of emotions and flow while contemplating existence. “How long will violence triumph?”.

2 of 4

Saint Levant- Tourist

Upcoming singer Saint Levant is taking over social media and music apps for being known for mixing a tryptic of languages: Arabic, English and French in all his songs. He has Palestinian, French, Algerian and Serbian origins and is very outspoken about diversity in all sense of the word. He mainly puts out his Palestinian identity, being born in Jerusalem and growing up in Gaza before going abroad. Tourist talks about “how he feels like a Tourist in his home city” and his identity. His music mixes Rap, Hip Hop and R&B.

3 of 4

A-WA - "Hana Mash Hu Al Yaman"

A-wa is a Yemeni original trio of sisters bringing in some progressive rhythm to the music they create. This song is based on their grandmother's actual experience fleeing Yemen in 1949 during what is known as "Operation Magic Carpet" and immigrated to Israel to escape terror and persecution. Upon arrival in Israel, however, the Yemenite Jews were interned and discriminated against on a daily. Their song lyrics translate to:
Where will I stake a home?
(You have a tent for now)
Or at least a small shack
(Along with four other families)
And here I will raise a family
(Don’t let them take your daughter)
I’ll find myself a job with an income
(Either in cleaning or working the earth)

This song does not only show the reality of the Yemeni Jew migration but also showcases the state of many migrants nowadays in refugee camps. Their song dynamic is a mix of traditional Yemeni music references merged with electro and hip hop.

4 of 4

Flamingods - Dreams (On The Strip)

Flamingods is a Bahreini and London band formed on 2010. In an interview with Ransom Note the band state that they want to “show the beauty of cultures coming together, to make people accepted and loved at our shows whatever race, gender or sexual orientation they are". This can already tell you a lot about them and their principles. Their music is an amalgamation of Psychedelic alternative Rock with an Indie feel to it while still mixing in some Middle-eastern sound influence. They return with this new Single called Dreams, conveying a “wistful” 80s-90s inspired music.

Hope you enjoyed this song journey. These artists have much more sounds to offer other than the ones stated here. It’s safe to say that the MENA region has seen an emergence of music artists the last years that are getting more and more notoriety than ever before on a global scale.