One of the most famous Amazigh musicians born in the Algerian tribal region. He is considered ambassador of the Amazigh song in the world. By mixing local rhythms, Western songs and thousands and resolutely rich characters, printed with a deep human sense, he opened the perspectives of universality. Owner of a single track transferred from the worlds of geology and oil to the highest musical platforms.
Birth
Idir was born (whose real name is Hamid Sherritt) in 1949 in the remote village of Upper Djurdjura, called Ait Hussein, is located in the heart of the Berber Kabylie region of Algeria, and only 35 kilometers from Tizi Ouzou , the capital of the great tribes. His father was a shepherd and grew up in a family of Amazigh culture.
Idir says in an interview with the press, « I was lucky to have my grandmother and my mother Ahaartin. People come from far away to listen to them. »
study and training
He discovered his musical talents in elementary school where the natural science teacher asked him to learn to play the guitar. However, under Idir he focused on his study and specialized background in geology division, where he was supposed to run his career in the oil sector, but eventually get to a passion for art and the need for express through singing and music.
Technical Experience
« In a society dominated by oral culture, the word has great value, » Edir summarizes in a press release on his cultural and artistic references in his Amazigh village.
Since his childhood was extended to the art of the word Bamgaha folk heritage, rhythm and poetry, but first asphalt professionalism was by chance, from 1973, when artists Awad’s patients in the performance of a song for the kids to raise the radio, paying attention to the beauty of his voice, that I was listening to him and his mother without you know it’s his son’s voice.
The same year, he performs his military service and, after his return, he recorded the song, which is still his work, « Avava Inova », in the studio of the Amazigh chain of Algiers. The song captures an Amazigh legend of a strange girl who, all day long in the forest, collects fruit for her father and younger siblings.
He knocks on the door and the Sheikh of Inova asks if he opens the door or not for fear of the monster of the jungle. The old man agrees with his daughter to make sure his parents are sure of being his daughter. She enters the house and snuggles in the arms of her old father while singing her song.
In 1979, he re-experimented with a series of songs included in his second album, « Mayash Enag ». After the resounding success of the debuts, especially with Afava Inova, which was the first piece of the North African musical performance at the world level.
The decade of the eighties was a stage for Idir’s disapproval before returning to the studios in 1991, where he re-recorded 17 of the first two albums. In February 1992, he gave a successful concert in Paris to classify the artistic style of the Algerian artist into « world music ».
In 1993, he embarked on a new career introduced by the professional world with the band Blue Silvery using musical rhythms such as guitar, flute and organ, in addition to Darbouka. Edir climbed the platform of the famous Olympia Hall for three consecutive days.
He characterized by Idir in artistic choices in a spirit of commitment to humanitarian sense and clinging to identity, land and memory, and participated in January 22, 1995 in a ceremony for peace in the context of Assembly « Algeria Life » led by Cheb Khaled who.
He was also present to pay tribute to the Amazigh song « Damaged People », which was murdered in 1998. Maybe its song titles and albums reflect this spirit similar to the « little village » and « Algeria in my heart » And « identities: Dftan a dream » and « France in color. » »
« IDIR is not as rich as the others, he is a member of all families, » said French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. He stayed in production because of the length of his career because, as he once said, he was unable to write about things he did not experience.
