Worship. The word could not be more appropriate to the evocation of the Abranis, a group revered both by sound researchers around the world and by proselytizing supporters of Berber identity. To measure the impact, just take a walk on the vast web, where these musicians from Algeria are the subject of many conversations as their vinyls – 45-rpm or LP – are more than popular on digger networks. . And that’s not new, even if a compilation published on the Swiss label Bongo Joe once again puts the spotlight on this legendary combo. How to explain such a phenomenon that crosses the ages? ” There is no doubt a feeling of nostalgia for the new generation born in Europe, who are curious about what we represent. At the time, we embodied the symbiosis between Europe and the Kabyle world. We were at the height of the cultural openness that has dominated the world », Analyzes Shamy, co-founder of the group which will celebrate its eightieth anniversary next year.
« We were even the first at Sacem in scopitones (jukebox associating image with sound, editor’s note). In front of Johnny and Claude François! “, assures the same man, author of numerous documentaries and books. It was not nothing for this group born in the head of two young Kabyles emigrated to France, where they will frequent the Kabyle bars which make the hot nights of the north east of Paris, while listening to the music of their youth: Elvis Presley, James Brown, Otis Redding, Duke Ellington, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and so on. Non-exhaustive list, of which the future octogenarian likes to specify that Cat Stevens was the favorite singer.
Rockabylia Ambassadors
It all started in 1967, when these two young people bet on creating a trendy rock band. The first, Abdelkader Chemini, born in 1944 and better known by the nickname of Shamy El Baz, arrived in France at the beginning of the 1960s, after being tortured in the Jebel by the French army. He underwent 33 operations there, forever bearing the scars of this war which did not speak its name at the time, but made this resilience a new chance: he seized the opportunity to resume his studies as an autodidact and learn the first rudiments of keyboards. ” I quickly understood the difference between the people and the power. They are two very different things “, still insists in 2023 the one who has lived for sixty years in France, now dividing his time between Honfleur and Paris. As for the second and youngest Karim Abdenour, Sid Mohand Tahar in civil status, he arrived in France at the age of thirteen, just after the Evian agreements which sealed the independence of Algeria. Far from his native mountains, the one who touched his first guitar when landing on the banks of the Seine will soon frequent the Golf Drouot (rock club in Paris, editor’s note), and find material there to imagine giving rock an original version, ” the rockabyle”. It will be Les Abranis, a gang of youngsters among so many as the planet buzzes with hippie effervescence, an era of flowery fashion revolutions. peace and love.
The Abranis therefore, a name that owes nothing to chance for this formation of the abrasive genre. ” For centuries, three Berber tribes covered an area stretching from Egypt to Mauritania. Two were constantly at war with each other, and the third was considered more peace-loving. It was the Branis, who acted as reconcilers », assures Shamy who recognizes in this choice a form of « allegory as to their goals “. From a musical point of view, these consist of formulating a link between the folklore of their origins and the sounds that cross the world, a fusion that they formulate in 1973 with drummer Samir Chabane. and guitarist Madi Mahdi. The 45 rpm Athejaladdetitle which introduces the present compilation baptized Amazigh Freedom Rock, provides a good idea. A feeling of formal freedom, which “Ayetheri A L’Afjare”, another song recorded in 1973 where the general tone – a garage rock tinged with post-psychedelia – does not exclude daring pentatonic rhythms.
Hair that irritates the FLN
It’s just as much in a middle way that they write their lyrics. About the ? ” Social, philosophical, festive, sentimental, sometimes rebellious and demanding… “, underlines today Karim, the singer and main composer. ” The texts were less raw than Matoub Lounèstempers Shamy. We were inspired by the Kabyle authors of the 18th century and the modernity of our time. And this synthesis took the form of metaphors and parables, which evoke in whispers the situation of the Amazigh people in post-colonial Algeria. Everyone will nevertheless quickly understand their scope, to gauge the echo that their songs cause in the North African mountains. Moreover, this prevention not to take the government of Algiers head on will in no way protect them from serious galleys when, leaving in a car from Chelles in the Parisian suburbs, they land in Algeria for the first Algerian song festival in 1973.
« Algerian officials were afraid that we would sing in French or English. In fact when we started in Kabyle, they quickly understood: after three songs, they lowered the curtain! “, recalls half-amused half-ironical Shamy whose passport was then taken away for six months. Clearly, the authorities in Algiers are putting serious pressure on the group to sing in Arabic, which it will do not without ” derision by composing a song with three verses – one in Arabic, one in French, one in Kabyle – then by signing the soundtrack of a film, with the explicit title (The foreigners). « The Arab-Baath power considered our arrival as the intrusion of a parasite. They felt that our style was a bad example for the youth. What bothered them the most was that the texts were sung in Kabyle, a despised and almost forbidden language. », Resumes Karim. ” For the Algerian power, we were perceived as decadent, carriers of the seeds of capitalism. adds Shamy. And it was quite naturally the double penalty for this group of emancipated hirsutes who threatened the values of the Nation State in full construction. President Boumediène will go so far as to bring together four ministers to discuss the problem of this group which fills the stadiums by importing ideologies contrary to the spirit of the FLN.
« We just wanted to dig up what power was trying to bury », Clarifies quite frankly Shamy, who likes to say that Saint Augustine was Berber, and that nine popes were Kabyles. Still, the Abranis will therefore position themselves at the forefront of the movement of Amazigh cultural renewal. “And then there was Djamel Allam, Idir… adds Shamy, listing the insurgent movements linked to this community: Spring 80, the movement of 1988, 2001 and the black spring on which I made a film, all come from Kabylia. And even the hirak uses our slogans. We then understand better why in 1975, their first major Algerian tour was hit by a concert ban in Kabylia, provoking demonstrations and clashes with the police in place, who resolved to authorize the show to calm people down. ” Our fans were even jostled and beaten, arrested and mistreated, even tortured, notably in Sidi-Aich during a gala canceled by the police at the last minute. “says Karim. And to add that they were subsequently subject to censorship by official radio and television.
“A perpetual creative laboratory”
Just as the aesthetic mutates over the years for these musicians who add strings and chords to their playing, the combo will be subject to many personnel changes, following the departure in 1975 of the first pillars that were Samir Chabane and Madi Mahdi. Randomly in the albums that the Abranis record, we find exiles from Algeria as well as musicians from the French scene, including bassist Jannick Top and drummer Dédé Ceccarelli, so many additions that take nothing away from the original and original character of this group whose base is the compositions of Shamy and Karim, ” an improvised yoghurt base from which all our references emerged. (…) It was a perpetual creative laboratory. Unlike others who have modernized the traditional, like Nass El Ghiwane, or Vigon who sang in English. », specifies Shamy, one of the most erudite when it comes to evoking the diffusion of Kabyle culture through the ages. ” We even used Breton instruments! It goes back to Hannibal. »
The pioneering and unique character of the Abranis, accustomed like the very good to the plateau of Pop Club by José Artur but shunned by most of the media mainstream – « Apart from a few houses of culture, it was mainly associations that asked us for solidarity galas for free because they themselves were penniless. », reminds Karim – appears at every second of this compilation, which draws from their abundant discography recorded between 1973 and 1983, their golden age which culminated in the oddly aptly named Album N°1. From the middle of the 1980s, if the group continued to tour, in North Africa as in Europe, even having Les Négresses Vertes and Mano Negra for opening acts in Germany, it would only occasionally go to the studio. Gone are the days of darkness Abranis 77firebrand appeared on Bordj El Fen, an Algerian label, just like the next one. Imitated Tayri in 1978, with a much more festive tone.
Twenty years after their first furrows, Shamy El Baz and Karim Abdenour went to the studio in 1993 to produce a new album in Algeria on their own money, when the country had just begun the black decade which was to decimate all local culture. This will be the final act, the two lifelong friends – “ till today “, assures Shamy again – disagreeing. ” Karim agreed to sing for Algiers, capital of Arab culture. Not me ! “recalls the eldest vehemently. And it will be necessary to wait more than ten years before a new formula of the group reappears, with Karim, now retired and installed in Algeria, but also some of his children, including Belaïd on guitar. ” Abranis has become a concept more than a group fixed on a few individuals. A good forty musicians between guitarists, drummers and bassists made an appearance in this adventure», stresses Karim.
A concept that is still alive and active, “ with many projects of compositions of studios, clips “According to the latter who publicly announced to stop the scene. Despite everything, it is difficult to glimpse an artistic lineage to these funny UFOs that appeared half a century ago in the discographic landscape, despite all the racket caused by their countless concerts in Algeria, in front of packed stadiums. Certainly, listening to Shamy, Khaled would have said that the Abranis had given him the idea of doing “modern”, but it would be difficult to see in the singers of raï the heirs of these pioneers. All in all, it would be at the other end of the largest country in Africa that there are musicians walking in their own way in the footsteps of the Abranis. The Tinariwen and all followers of the desert blues, the Tamasheq sound that affirms a discordant identity with the central state. “ Their approach is the same, in the look as in the lyrics, and like us they use guitars full of rock and blues. »
