A Cultural Journey

For many Arabic artists, culture has deep ties within their respective musical styles. It is no different for Natacha Atlas, born in Brussels, Belgium to a Sephardic Jewish father and a British mother (“Biography”). Her distinct background and diverse travels have certainly influenced her music as well as her general attitude about what music means for her, which I’ll get to later.
When she was young, Atlas felt foreign to her own Arabic heritage and moved to England with her mother. One night in a London club, she recognized Arabic music playing and suddenly became drawn to it. This revelation piqued her curiosity to delve further into her own multinational background, growing proud of the mix of European and Arabic cultures (“Biography”).

In 1991, Atlas joined the London group, Transglobal Underground, and began bringing a fusion of Arabic traditional methods with Western electronic and pop into her songs, dubbing the resulting style as ‘cha’abi moderne’—off of the Egyptian ‘shaabi’ which includes themes that reassert a proud Egyptian identity (“Biography”). A lot of her music, in fact, seems to reflect these political statements that one should be proud of their individual diversity and stress multiculturalism. Atlas’ own unique background is comparable to the vast culture of the Mediterranean itself, a whole body encompassing so many mixed heritages that it’s hard to solely distinguish one of them without picking up on influences from the next. Many of her songs and covers are recorded in the French language, again, to emphasize the malleability of sound and application of different themes presented to the public through the verses. However, her mixing of musical styles was originally critiqued in France until it saw more exposure and grew popularized among fellow Arab artists (“Biography”). Atlas’ first album entitled Diaspora depicts a literal translation of her diffusion from her homeland which is personally reflected in her music; ironically, it seems as Atlas does not have one particular homeland, but several to which she looks for identity and influence.