Aziza Brahim & GuliliMankoo - "Ard Salam" (Western Sahara)

Posted by AZIZABRAHIM
July 20, 2008

Video Summary:
"Recorded at the 5th FESCIGU, Guadalajara, Spain, December 2007."

end of quote

Here's an excerpt from an article that provides some information about Aziza Brahim:

11 November 2009

Western Sahara / United Kingdom:
"Aziza Brahim shortlisted for Freedom to Create Prize

Western Saharan singer and musician Aziza Brahim, who recently performed at WOMEX in Copenhagen and this year’s Lovebox Weekender in United Kingdom, is shortlisted for the 2009 Freedom to Create Prize, in the Main Prize category.

Support and sustain creativity
Freedom to Create is an initiative that seeks to improve lives by addressing society’s ability to support and sustain creativity. The initiative focuses on those societies in greatest need.

Now based in Spain, Aziza Brahim is nominated alongside Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the celebrated Iranian filmmaker, Sheenkai Alam Stanikzai, an Afghan artist, Karim Ben Khelifa, a Yemeni former war photographer, and The Kumjing Storytellers, a refugee touring women’s group from Burma. ..

Aziza Brahim, whose songs evoke exile, the right to freedom and the abuse of the human rights of her people living in the occupied zones of Western Sahara, was in exile before she was even born, when her heavily pregnant mother fled to a refugee camp in 1976.

Nominated for her album, Mi Canto, Aziza Brahim mixes Saharawi music with rock, blues and African percussions, renovating the Saharawi rhythms to make Saharawi music accessible to the whole world.

Aziza’s music is censored by the authorities in Morocco and the Western Sahara zones because authorities believe it champions the Saharawi people that have been tortured, killed or have disappeared during the conflict. Aziza, considered an enemy of the Moroccan government, can no longer visit the occupied zones:....