Lemma & Omar Sosa

As with the most beautiful encounters, this is a story that owes as much to the forces of chance as to the ability of certain people to find kindred spirits. It all began in 2009, during the Pan-African Festival in Algiers. Souad Asla met Omar Sosa in a hotel lobby. The connection between the Algerian musician and singer and the Cuban pianist was instantaneous. And with good reason: Souad Asla defends the endangered folk repertoire of her native Souara region, while Sosa is a tireless ambassador and renovator of Afro-Caribbean traditions and the diasporic music associated with them. Their complicity becomes osmosis on the evening when, invited by Sosa, Souad Asla lays her vocals on his piano notes.
The founding in 2017 of the Lemma collective, imagined and led by Souad Asla, was all that was needed to create the conditions for a high-flying collaboration. Blurring the lines between sacred and profane, space and time, this intergenerational group of women from the Souara region brings to light, with intense voices, a South Algerian repertoire that was once either reserved for men or condemned to invisibility. Five years after their unforgettable performance at the Opéra, it's a joy to see them join forces with Omar Sosa's panoramic inspiration, in a field of exploration linking the ever-lively fire of traditions, between trance rhythms and songs from the mists of time, Gnawa and Yoruba rites, spiritual depths and bursts of voluptuousness.

Souad Asla - vocals, gumbri, artistic direction, Omar Sosa - piano, artistic direction, Csaba Palotaï - guitar, Aziza Tahri - vocals, derbuka, t'bal, bendir, karkabu, Mebrouka Brik - vocals, bendir, karkabu, Gustavo Ovalles - percussion, Rabia Boughazi - percussion, drumstick, backing vocals, Sabrina Cheddad - bendir, derbuka, backing vocals.

Running time : 1 hour 45 minutes