Abdel Hazim

Interview with the maker of "fusion bellydance"

Abdel Hazim has spent more than 30 years fusing occidental music with North African, Indian and Arabic music. Together with Arab, Turkish musicians he experimented with new and different sonic landscapes. Each CD production has one of the old relics, starting with "Snakedance" on the "Hatshepsut and other dances" album.

Are you satified with the new album?
I'm more excited to find out the reactions of the public. For me, I always enjoy the performances of Mohamed (Zahdee) and Abed. As the music is rather unusual it's a surprize for the listener. But I'm pretty happy with it, especially with "Bait el hob" and "Raqs Shaabi", a shikat moroccan dance tune. Zahdee did also the "Dzjora" track on "Tribal bellydance", a reggae-raï tune on a mangouchi beat.

Why did you choose "Fusion bellydance" as title of your 4 th album?
In fact looking back on the 3 previous productions, the constant was fusion. I recorded "Snakedance" of the Hatshepsut album begin of the eighties. Might be the first bellydance fusion track ever recorded. It used a slide guitar on an electronic shifte-telli beat. The album "Tribal bellydance" featured Chalinova, a bosso nova guitar on khaleezji rhythms and other Tribal Fusion Bellydance compositions. "Bellydance revolutions" went even further and was a mix of bollywood and jazz and even funk like in "Funkabelly". So it became pretty obvious that the best title for the collection of belly dance tracks was "Fusion bellydance".

Studio sessions "Bellydance revolutions"

"Fusion bellydance" differens completely from your previous work. Well they are all different from each other, but here you also collaborated with Senegalese musicians.
Indeed. I lived in Senegal for a couple of years, in Kafountine, a small fishervillage in the Casamance region. Before I returned to Europe, I did some productions with local and rap artists. I suggested they should use more African musicians in their music and did some recordings for that purpose with a young Kora player, Touba. The result became "Hbj dance for the pharao". Had the change to learn the details of the history of the Serèr people, which were supposed to have their origins in Ancient Egypt. And in fact there was a striking resemblance with instruments used in pharaonic Egypt and the Xalam, still played in Western-Africa.
Zahdee, a North-African ud player, born in Sidi Bel Abbès, Algeria, did also do 3 contributions to the album. I made all the arangements before adding the solo. When recording the lute (ud), I only let him hear the Indian percussion and not the ayoubi beat which is the main rhythm. This gave the track a psychedelic dimension.

How did you start to make this kind of fusion music?
I made fusion as soon as I picked up an instrument. My first instrument being an ukelele (laughed). It just developed more and more into this direction because that is the music I always wanted to make. When I made pop music the late seventies and early eighties, I already worked together with Indian and North-African musicians. Bollywood beats fused with funky bass grooves, that kind of stuff. As I worked more than 20 years together with bellydancers and fellow musicians of Arabic or Turkish origin, the chemistry of the different music styles began to work.

Are you finally going on tour? If so, whcih will be the line-up?
Good questions! Looking back on my productions I mentioned that they also reflect the evolution and history of oriental bellydance. Starting with pharaonic dance in Hatshepsut. Tribal fusion in "Tribal bellydance", a CD that sold very good in unexpected parts of the world, even in Saudi Arabia was recorded partly in Egypt with Egyptian top musicians. "Bellydance revolutions" turned out to be a transition album, dedicated to revolutionary dancers like Samia Gamal, Tahia Carioca, Ava Fleming, Rachel Brice, you name them.
So going on tour will be a difficult task as I worked together with musicians of different parts of the world. Finding dancers and musicians that master the different styles. But the Abdel Hazim band was invited to festivals in Eastern Europe (Hungary), France as well as the U.S.A. But our principal bellydancer gave up her career for personal reasons and one of the key musicians disappeared in Lebanon. Perhaps when I find new dancers and percussionists we will pump the stages full of adrenaline in 2009!
Hint: you may want to try: iTunes or Amazon.com

ABDEL HAZIM: Tribal beats including Hatshepsut