Belgian-born singer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and classical belly dancer
Natacha Atlas is possessed of a throaty, expressive alto and offers a multilingual vocal approach to the fusion of Arabic and South Asian musics with Western styles, from electronica to pop to jazz standards. As a solo artist and in well-documented collaborations with more than 100 others (
Peter Gabriel,
Jean-Michel Jarre,
Jamaaladeen Tacuma, and
Belinda Carlisle among them), her music was born from her family's heritage of Egyptian, Palestinian, Moroccan, and Sephardic ethnicities. Her intensely rhythmic vocal style was heard outside Europe first with
Jah Wobble's Invaders of the Heart on the hit album
Rising Above Bedlam in 1991. She served as lead vocalist and belly dancer with world fusion electro band
Transglobal Underground, starting with their dancefloor hit single "Temple Head." She is a relentless experimenter. Her solo albums, beginning with 1995's downtempo fusion set
Diaspora, have charted across the Arab world. In 1998 she delivered an Arabic fusion cover of
Françoise Hardy's pop chanson "Mon Amie en Rose" that charted in Europe. Her 2006 offering,
Mish Maoul, wed Arabic, electronic, and organic beats to Latin sounds and bossa nova. In 2008 she fronted the traditional Arabic Mazeeka Ensemble on Ana Hina. She took on British folk with 2010's Riverman EP, that featured her charting cover of
Nick Drake's signature tune alongside a host of club remixes. In 2016 she delved into jazz with
Myriad Road, produced by trumpeter
Ibrahim Maalouf, and
Eros with
Paolo Fresu and
Omar Sosa. She has since performed with her old friends in
Transglobal Underground while continuing to record on her own, releasing
Strange Days in 2019.
The Brussels-born
Atlas is the daughter of an English mother and a Sephardic Jewish father. She grew up in a Moroccan suburb of Brussels and was heavily influenced by its Arabic culture. In addition to learning to speak French, Spanish, English, and Arabic,
Atlas was trained in the traditional techniques of raq sharki (belly dancing). Moving to England as a teen,
Atlas quickly attracted attention as the first Arabic rock singer in Northampton.
Dividing her time between England and Brussels,
Atlas sang in Arabic and Turkish clubs and appeared briefly with a Belgian salsa band, Mandanga. In the early '90s, she became involved with England's alternative rock scene, appearing on ¡Loca!'s single "Timbal,"
Apache Indian's single "Arranged Marriage," and
Jah Wobble's album
Rising Above Bedlam, which included five songs she co-composed. Accepting an invitation to join
Transglobal Underground as lead singer and belly dancer,
Atlas was featured on the band's first four albums --
Dream of 100 Nations, International Times,
Interplanetary Meltdown, and Psychic Karaoke. She continued to work with
Wobble, as well, co-writing and singing on three tunes from his album Take Me to God in 1994.
Atlas' debut solo album,
Diaspora, released in 1995, featured accompaniment by Tunisian singer/songwriter
Walid Rouissi and Egyptian composer and oud player
Essam Rashad.
Halim followed in 1997 and
Gedida in 1999.
Atlas worked with soundtrack composer
David Arnold on the score of the Kurt Russell film Stargate.
In 2000 she released a collection of remixes.
Ayeshteni appeared the following spring.
Something Dangerous appeared in 2003 with a slicker and more pop-oriented sound. The career-spanning
Best of Natacha Atlas was released in 2005, the same year she became a cultural ambassador for the United Nations. A year later, the sentimental
Mish Maoul appeared as an homage to the music she'd heard during her childhood in Morocco. In 2008
Atlas fronted the traditional Arabic Mazeeka Ensemble led by
Samy Bishai on the World Village title Ana Hina. 2010's
Mounqaliba for Six Degrees was co-produced by
Samy Bishai and inspired by the poems of Indian poet
Rabindranath Tagore. In addition to original works, it contained covers of tunes by
Françoise Hardy and
Nick Drake. The album's composers included
Zoe Rahman and
Jocelyn Pook. She followed it with two remix EPs, Mounqaliba Rising: The Remixes and
Riverman, reunited with
Transglobal Underground for a tour, and collaborated with
Bishai on the co-billed Les Nuits in 2013. Two years later she teamed with
Ibrahim Maalouf on
Myriad Road, her first collection of jazz tunes. She performed it with his band at festivals across Europe and Asia.
In 2016 she worked with pancultural jazzmen
Paolo Fresu and
Omar Sosa on the album
Eros alongside the Italian string ensemble
Quartetto Alborada and Brazilian instrumentalist, arranger, conductor, and composer
Jaques Morelenbaum. Its first single was a cover of
Massive Attack's "Teardrop" with a jazz-classical arrangement. In 2019, she and
Bishai co-composed the score for Herve Koubi's contemporary dance creation Odyssey that fall, and followed by releasing the album
Strange Days on Whirlwind Recordings. Cut in the U.K., France, and Brazil,
Strange Days comprised originals and covers that moved through jazz, bossa nova, Arabic, and Carnatic music, weaving and blending them as the arrangements dictated. The lead single, a cover of James Brown's "It's a Man's World," was performed in duet with
Joss Stone. Other guest appearances included reedsman
Idris Rahman, guitarist Paulo Vinícius, and vocalists Tanya Wells and
Sofiane Saidi. ~ Craig Harris