Article in German Musik Journal
"IN MUSIC"

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Interview with Malik Belili

What are you singing about in your album Zmanayi?
MB: I'm singing about love, about life. The present time affects me very deeply because it no longer corresponds to the natural goodness in people. I would also like to give hope to all those who are oppressed, to those whose experiences of life are like those that my people have been experiencing for decades. I would especially like to express my love for my country ( Algeria ).

When you write a song, what comes first, the music or the lyrics?
MB: Thousands of melodies run through my mind, and when I like one of them because it's tuneful and attractive, it comes to life, taking form in my mind, until I then finally write the lyrics to it. That's how the song's then born.

What inspires you?
MB: I don't have any particular grounds for inspiration. It can happen at any time because the artist is the reflection of others. I never stop working, neither day nor night. That's why I have music in me.

You've now been living in Europe for 16 years, currently in Paris . And you were born in Kabylia. Where do you feel most yourself?
MB: The Berbers are a nomadic people, and I've lived everywhere in Europe a little. Since I've travelled through all the countries, I've come to know them and love them, but the place I can most feel myself is Paris , of course. Nevertheless, nothing can be a substitute for the place where life began, in Kabylia.

What's life like in Kabylia? What's a Berber's life like?
M.B: Berbers are in contact with nature; life is very simple and calm. The Berbers are a cultured people, very much given to music and poetry, as it were. Life's seen through the eyes of poetry. Since I was a very small boy, I was always listening to my mother singing when she was making butter or collecting olives to make oil from them at home. She was always ready with some love poem or other that simply came to her lips. It was my mother who passed on singing to me.

What's shaped your life, made the greatest impression on you?
MB: The evening when I learned to play the guitar on the banks of the well-known river in my village (Zerkoune). On that evening, I understood that music had conquered my heart and that it would never let go of me again.

What is your goal?
MB: To spread my art and, through song, to share it with others. And to develop it as normally as possible.

Journal METRO/FRANCE,Tuesday, 08 April 2003
„World. The young kabyle Singer brings out his third album in France. Zmanayi (Ce temps-là). Lumiere de ma vie is a spezial mix of Kabyle-occidental, a hommage to his roots. His songs talking with extremly sensibility, about Love, Remebering and Hope...“

International magazine YASMINA, 11 October 2003
Born in a small village in Kabyle, Malik begins to sing at weddings at a very early age.
In 1990, his first album, “Oh ma vie” (Oh, my life), is successful in Algeria , where the radio station Chaine 2 often plays him. Then he leaves for Paris , where he records his second album “Danse”³ (Dance). This second album expresses the joy of living from the very first piece. “Soleil du Nord” (Sun of the north), sung in French, with flamenco elements and violin accompaniment, and the amusing “laylaylaylayla” were particular well-liked. Malik writes his own lyrics and composes all his songs himself; he also becomes a little melancholy when he sings of his country, such as in “Lumière de ma vie”(Light of my life: “Tu es la lumière de ma vie, Soleil d´Algérie, la nostalgie de mon pays” (You are the light of my life, sun of Algeria, longing for my country).