Souad Massi

Somewhere between folk, rock and poetry, Souad Massi is back with Zagate, a dazzling album in which the softness of her vocals stands in stark contrast with the weight of today’s world. The emotional force and lyrical clarity present throughout this ten-track album makes it the most liberated and outspoken work in the French-Algerian artist’s career.

Zagate – a word derived from the French expression “ça se gâte”, which is used in Algeria to announce that “things are getting worse”. In choosing this title for her new album, Souad Massi makes more than a linguistic reference. With this one word she affirms her dual heritage, between Algeria, where she was born; and France, where she has been living and creating music for the past twenty-six years. This double expression opens the way for an intense album, more rock, more audacious than ever, without betraying the fragility she has become known for.

Helmed by English guitarist and producer Justin Adams – already present on the album Sequana (2022) – the eleven tracks on Zagate, recorded predominantly in England, explore a range of emotions of a rare intensity: pain, anger and revolt, but also hope and courage. From the electric rock of Ana Inssan to the bewitching Afrobeat of Samt, or from the Saharan folk of D’ici, De là-bas to the Parisian blues of Chibani, each track reveals new vocal nuances. Long associated with gentleness and melancholy, Souad Massi steps out here in all of her diversity, more whole and more authentic than ever.

With rappers Youssoupha (Congo Connection) and Gaël Faye (D’ici, De là-bas) by her side, she offers us an album which is both intimate and political, in which her poetry becomes an act of resistance in itself. Here is a mirror-album, by an artist more liberated in her expression and more in touch with the world than ever.