A-WA

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The band A-WA at a concert in the Barbi Club (September 2015)

A-WA ( Yemeni-Arabic إيوه, DMG ēwa 'ja', originally a short formإي والله, DMG ē wa-ḷḷāh 'yes, by God') is an Israeli band consisting of the three sisters Tair, Liron and Tagel Haim. The band is best known for their song Habib Galbi , in which they underlay Yemeni traditional music with electro and hip-hop beats.

The three sisters' paternal grandparents came to Israel from Yemen as part of Operation Magic Carpet 1949/50. In Israeli society, Mizrachim - the name commonly used in Israel for Jewish population groups from Asia and especially the Middle East - had and still have a particularly difficult position. The three sisters, who grew up in the Arava Valley in southern Israel, belong to a younger generation Mizrachim who remember their “oriental heritage”. They follow Ofra Haza , who achieved worldwide fame with Yemeni songs as early as the 1980s.

The band's first single - Habib Galbi ("Love of My Heart") - is based on the song of the same name by singer Shlomo Moga'av from the 1960s. In the song, a woman sings about her grief because her lover has left her. The three sisters have picked up on this and added electro and hip-hop beats, while singing in Yemeni Arabic. With the support of singer and producer Tomer Yosef , lead singer of the band Balkan Beat Box , they released the first single in April 2015. In the video produced for this, the three sisters dance in pink hijab , drive through the desert in a jeep and dance with three Men dressed in blue Adidas suits perform a Yemeni wedding dance.

The band achieved great fame with the release of their single, especially in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. An album is planned for late 2015 / early 2016.

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Avishay Artsy, translated by Anne Hemeda: Israel says A-WA - 'Yes!' - with the singing Yemeni sisters. In: Global Voices in German. June 14, 2015, accessed December 25, 2015 .
  2. ↑ A-Wa's Unlikely Journey From Rural Israel to Global Fame. In: The Forward. August 6, 2015, accessed December 25, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Jessica Steinberg: The hip-hop groove of the Yemenite tune. In: The Times of Israel. March 25, 2015, accessed December 25, 2015 .
  4. ↑ Rawiya Kameir: Meet A-WA, The Israeli Sisters Making Yemenite Folk Go Pop. In: The FADER. October 2, 2015, accessed December 25, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Gaar Adams: Sick Beats and Sykes-Picot. In: Foreign Policy. June 5, 2015, accessed December 25, 2015 .