Only a few yards away from the touristic area of Montmartre, the shops give way to simple stalls selling African and Arabic music, barbers are the cheapest in the whole capital and cigarette touts approach passersby right outside halal butchers. Barbès, this noisy neighborhood located between the overground metro station and the famous Tati shop, played an important part in the history of French immigration. This is where workers from Algeria, Morocco, Mali or Senegal first took up residence, often living in lousy hotel rooms so they could save up. It is also the cafés of the neighborhood that gave birth to the North African music scene in France. At the beginning it was confidential and only known to the hundreds of immigrants who would stop in these cafés on their way back from the factory to listen to songs from back home. Many legendary singers performed there; the likes of Dahmane El Harrachi, Slimane Azem or the young Cheb Khaleb before he established his reputation as a superstar in France.
And it is the noise, the scent and the spirit of this area, as well as the musical fusion between the various North African and French communities, that the Orchestre National de Barbes embodies. The 12 musicians hailing from different parts of the Maghreb and France have found the perfect recipe for their music and have managed to put everyone on the same wavelength: Moroccans, Algerians, Tunisians and French altogether. Their songs are greatly influenced by Alloui, Gnawi, Chaabi and Berber rhythms and played with all the energy of a rock or ska band. Incidentally the Orchestre National de Barbes is first and foremost a live band and their first album, released in 1997, is indeed a live recording. Straight away, the band met huge popular success in France and North Africa and since then, they have recorded 4 albums in spite of a few interruptions due to organizational problems.
Their new album "Rendez-vous Barbes" is nothing less than an excellent follow-up to the previous ones and arrives at the right time to instill dynamism into a North-African music that they represent so well. Showing all the energy and creativity that can be found in the working-class neighborhoods of Paris, this album will make you dance and maybe forget the somewhat “excessive coolness” of Parisian people.
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