Last week, in a large metropolitan Canadian city, Bambi and her spouse took a taxi whose sweet driver was of Algerian heritage. They chatted about the Maritimes and food, etc. Of course, the conversation naturally diverted to the lovely Arabic language and culture.
Bambi told this Algerian-Canadian fellow how much she likes an Algeria-born French singer called, Mr. Enrico Macias. She mentioned his beautiful song about Beirut where she was born. He shared the same feelings about him and told her about another Jewish-Algerian female singer. A diva whose name he could not recall. Bambi was curious since that chat. Today, she decided to act on her curiosity by taking the time to search the internet. This is how she discovered Ms. Alice Fitoussi.
From her Wikipedia page, she learned the following: “Ms. Alice Fitoussi is an Algerian Jewish singer, having lived all her life in Algeria, born May 9, 1916 in Bordj Bou Arreridj and died in 1978 in El Biar” (https://shorturl.at/swnia).
Of note, “her father, Rahmim Fitoussi is a renowned singer and violinist. It was from him that she learned to sing and recorded her first record at the age of thirteen, she was the only Jewish singer who performed al-Madih (Muslim religious song to the glory of the Prophet Muhammad). After independence, she decided to stay and live in Algeria, only going to France to spend the winter” (https://shorturl.at/swnia)”.
Bambi is grateful to this charming cab driver (to whom she said in French while leaving his car: “please Sir keep your beautiful smile on your face“): the chat with him was enriching and he made her discover singer Alice Fitoussi. Who knows? Maybe some of you already knew the latter, especially those of you are familiar with Arabic music in general or Algerian songs in particular.
Of note, Bambi tried to find el-Madih Muslim chant performed by Ms. Fitoussi to share it with you, but there was nothing on YouTube (unless she missed it). She will thus only share three Algerian traditional songs performed by this late singer and end with Mr. Enrico Macias’ eternal Beirut song.
Long live the mix of cultures. Long live arts, music, languages, and… may the memory of Ms. Fitoussi be eternal.
