Yennayer: A Playlist for the Amazigh New Year

In many places across North Africa, Yennayer marks the beginning of the New Year on January 12. Bonfires are lit in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, Algeria’s Kabylia region, and Egypt’s Siwa Oasis, to cleanse the past year and usher in the new. 

The Imazighen (plural for Amazigh, the free people) are North Africa’s indigenous inhabitants. They encompass over 100 tribes with unique cultures and speak over 40 distinct languages, which they have struggled to protect from cultural invaders for centuries.

One thing they have in common is an impeccable gift of music making, which is characterized by hypnotic rhythms, pentatonic scales, storytelling, and mesmerizing communal vocals of call and response. You might recognize it by its string instruments and, more recently, the electric guitar of the Tishoumaren (desert blues) genre.

To Moroccan journalist Dounia Salimi, Amazigh music is amongst the most beautiful in the world. “It’s a household staple in Morocco, for Amazigh and non-Amazigh families alike,” she tells OkayAfrica. “It was always part of our everyday life and our memories. We listened to it on the road when going to see the winter snow or spring waterfalls in Ifrane, in the regions around Marrakech and Agadir, and in the North, where I’m from.”

“What moves me most is that it is truly pure poetry, in dialects that were transmitted and survived solely through oral tradition,” she continues. “Even when it’s sung in dialects I don’t understand, it somehow speaks to me deeply. It carries struggles, love, resilience, and collective memory. Stories rooted in specific places, resonating far beyond them. It’s both deeply rooted and universal, in a way that conveys and unites over what it means to grow up in Morocco.”

Algerian politics student Omar Djabi shares this sentiment. Like Salimi, he grew up hearing Amazigh music at family events and gatherings, specifically the Kabyle and Chaoui genres from his family’s region. “Honestly, it’s a bit weird because I don’t understand the language; my mother never taught it to me. But you feel a connection. It’s like it’s in the blood,” he says. 

Djabi’s family celebrates Yennaer with tea and sweets. Here’s a list of songs from Algeria, Morocco, and Libya to honor the start of the new agricultural year, led by Djabi’s recommendation that the best Amazigh music is “anything by Tinariwen.” 

Tuareg territory

Tinariwen - “Nànnuflày” (Algeria, Mali)

Undoubtedly the best-known Amazigh musicians, Grammy Award-winning collective Tinariwen has been popularizing the desert blues since the 1980s. Their guitar-driven combination of Tuareg rhythms, rock, and folk has always been deeply intertwined with the struggle for the Amazigh people’s independence and political freedom as a nomadic people that are subjected to arbitrary state lines. 

Imarhan - “Achinkad” (Algeria)

Imarhan is a Tuareg rock quintet from Algeria. Following in the footsteps of Tinariwen, they are continuing desert blues in even more uncertain times, but mixing it with more contemporary sounds and the desire to blend their culture with their urban upbringing. 

Amaka - “Tuareg” (Libya)

In Libya, Tuareg musician Amaka is the latest in line of an ever-evolving Amazigh musical identity. He blends the rhythms of his heritage with raï, hip hop, and everything in between, forging an even more modern Tuareg identity that is nonetheless rooted in land and tradition. “Tuareg music stopped developing and moving in the ‘90s. We’re stuck with the old style and our bands make very similar music,” he told OkayAfrica in an interview about his debut album TIDET, on which he tries to challenge and reinvent this old style.

Kabylia

Chérifa - “Ayiouen Louhidh” (Algeria)

Having composed over 800 songs over four decades of artistic practice, Chérifa is the grand dame of Kabyle music, even though she was never properly financially compensated for her art and the strong influence she had on Kabyle music. Kabylia is a mountainous coastal region by the Mediterranean and home to the Kabyle people, the largest Amazigh group in Algeria, who are known for their rich literary and music traditions.

Idir - “A vava inouva” (Algeria)

The “King of Amazigh Music,” Idir, was a beloved Algerian singer and advocate for Amazigh and Kabyle culture. He performed “A vava inouva,” an Amazigh lullaby, on Radio Algeria in 1973, which catapulted him to fame and into an artistic career that would be strongly intertwined with activism all his life. 

Morocco

“Morocco is home to hundreds of Amazigh tribes, spread across different regions of the country, some in desert-like areas, some in oases, some in valleys, some deep in the mountains,” says Salimi. “That diversity is deeply reflected in the music. Some songs are meant for sitting together with family, some for long journeys, others for weddings and celebration, or grief and remembrance. It accompanies every moment of life, and even after leaving the country, I still feel the need to listen to some of these songs.”

Sarah & Ismael - “AMOUDOU” (Morocco)

Based between Agadir and Shanghai, Sarah & Ismail are amongst the most beloved young Amazigh musicians, fusing the oral tradition and local genres of their heritage with soul and jazz-funk. Their catalog is a tapestry of the different Amazigh dialects and regions as they experiment with covers of songs that are from Morocco, Algeria, and beyond. 

Mohamed Rouicha - “Inas Inas” (Morocco)

“Inas Inas” is a wedding classic by the legendary singer and master of the loutar, Mohamed Rouicha. His nickname “Rouicha” meant “mix something for us” in Tamazight, one of the many Amazigh languages. While Amazigh poetry is difficult to translate, Rouicha would sing his songs both in Tamazight and Arabic to bring his heritage closer to non-Amazigh audiences. 

Hadda Ouakki, Abdellah Zahraoui - “Imttawn” (Morocco)

Often hailed as “the Umm Kulthum of the Atlas,” Hadda Ouakki is an influential voice in the Tamawayt genre, which originates from the Central Atlas region of Morocco and is known for its rhythmic poetry, dialogued verses, and vocal improvisation. “Imttawn” is an iconic song that has become part of several generations’ lives.