Amazigh poems and songs by Faya Kassou
A collection of songs and poetry by Amazigh singer Faya Kassou has just been published. It is written by Hassane Benamara.
It is a collection of poems almost all composed, set to music and sung by this singer from Figuig in southeastern Morocco. These texts are transcribed into Amazigh and their French translation is offered each time. The collection designed in A5 format (14.8 x 21 cm) also includes a presentation of the said singer known in the Oriental and especially among the emigrant community in Paris.
Little known in Morocco even among the Amazigh community, Faya is however very well known in Algeria and his song (Ay Ifeyyey! Ô Figuig!) was covered in the 1980s by the Algerian singer Bachir Oulhaj who made it into a song that speaks of ksar Boussemghoune (South Oranese), it is entitled A Bousemghoune! O Boussemghoune! The Kabyle singer Massa Bouchafa, for her part, also covered Faya's tune in her song Ay at zman! O people of old!
Faya Kassou, the poet and singer who sang Figuig in his sorrows and his joys, addressed several themes such as love, youth, life, peace, the earth, nostalgia, women, emigration, misfortunes... Faya is also the musician who knew how to revalorize certain tunes from the musical heritage of this oasis. “I found myself in the rhythm that I play and I think it’s from Figuig. These are local musics that I use! They are not from other regions. I didn't imitate or plagiarize anyone, he said. »
Born in 1947 in Figuig, he started in the field of singing by imitating and repeating songs by the Egyptian Farid. He sang especially at wedding parties: because “The wedding parties were sublime; people sang and laughed a lot there with toumeẓya (oratory games). They brightened up our summers, he said. » even if in Figuig, at the time, it was shameful to sing or pass with a musical instrument in front of the public. Besides, a singer was seen as a kind of idle drunk.
Faya wrote the majority of her songs especially during the seventies of the last century. He reacted quickly to what was happening in Figuig as when this city had found itself deprived of an immense territory constituting its living space. For writing, “sometimes I even wake up during the night to write words that come to mind and since I don't write the music, I record it and memorize it. Afterwards, I rework everything. […] A song is never finished: it’s like a house, he says. » His first album was released in 1982 by Agadir (Porte Clichy-Paris).
He attended akherbiche (Koranic school) and had a brief education which he quickly interrupted around 1963 to engage in the world of forced labor. At 17, he was already a mason. After two years of military service, he headed to France; it was in 1968. His first musical instrument was made of strands of bicycle brake cable as strings and an iron oil can as a sound box.
In France it was launched by a certain Lamnaouar, an Algerian originally from Ghazaouat who had invited him to sing in Paris at the Cabaret Algérie: the only North African cabaret of the time. He had numerous contacts which allowed him to embark on the path of singing, particularly with Kabyle singers like Slimane Azem... He also knew singers from all walks of life such as Dahman Elharrach, Elhachmi Garouabi, Chaaou, Mohammed Elammari, Fateh Allah Lemghari, Naïma Samih, Abdelhadi Belkhyat, Fahd Bellan, Samira Taoufiq… Around 1976, he traveled to Switzerland, Italy, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, Egypt and Arabia. He sang in Aleppo in Syria at the Casino Sémiramis, in Cairo, in Alexandria in several nightclubs…
Today, he is retired and travels between Figuig and Oujda.
By: Hassane Benamara