Kamel El Harrachi

Born

1973-07-01

Birthplace

Algiers, Algeria

Biography

Kamel Amrani, known by the stage name Kamel El Harrachi (in Arabic: كمال الحراشى), born in Algeria in 1973, is an Algerian chaâbi singer and composer, mandola player. Kamel El Harrachi is an artist, author, composer, performer, Sevranais born in Algeria, of Chaoui origin from the village Djellal in the wilaya of Khenchela, his grandfather settled in Algiers in 1920 and became muezzin at the great mosque. After the birth of his father Dahmane El Harrachi (diminutive of Abderrahmane), the family settled in Belcourt, rue Maret, then settled permanently in El Harrach, hence the etymology of his stage name. Kamel has never stopped following in his father's footsteps since his childhood, in 1991 he also took up the stage name like his father El Harrachi in order to perpetuate his memory. He has lived in Paris since the early 1990s. He participates in the evolution of classical Chaâbi music which is noted in his first album "Ghana Fennou" which literally means "he sang his art", covering titles sung by his father and a number of his creations. Concerning his recent activities: he was invited in 2008 by the Festival Musique d'ici et d'ailleurs for the creation Micul Orasel alongside the duo Antiquarks (Richard Monségu and Sébastien Tron) and the Romanian accordionist Emy Dragoï, Kamel performed at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord as part of the WorldStock Festival in 2013 and on January 7, 2018 at the Espace François Mauriac in Sevran. Kamel El Harrachi is part of a young generation of Maghrebian musicians attached to the chaâbi genre and keen to see it evolve with the times. He performs his own compositions and those of his father. A repertoire between popular music and contemporary music. He worked on orchestration and wrote his own Zadjal texts, inspired by the elders, and which are like these precepts and wisdoms of the elders in poems. Kamel El Harrachi remains faithful to the styles and melodies that made Algerian chaâbi famous, reviving Maghrebian blues and the Casbah of Algiers.