=> https://habibifunkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/habibi-funk-018-the-slam-years-1983-1988

Hamid Al Shaeri -  Yekfini Nesma’sotak (Habibi Funk 018)

Whenever Rogér's name came up in conversations, it nearly automatically ended up in a praise of his outstanding musical talents. Right off, it caught my interest because neither had I heard of Rogér Fakhr nor could I find any infos about him on the internet. So Issam recounted how they even used to be flat mates for some time and constantly working on music together. Eventually their collaborations came to an end after Rogér emigrated to the USA. In fact, I got to know he initially was on tour as part of Fairuz's band in the US and just decided to stay there ultimately. At some point, Issam mentioned how he had actually kept some of Rogér’s music on tape in his basement but also he couldn’t play it to me before Rogér would green light that. 

As the story goes, at that period of time a multitude of projects were ongoing and I somehow missed out of inquiring further. Yet Rogér’s name kept on coming up in conversations with musicians of the same generation in Beirut steadily. No matter whether it was Ziad Rahbani, Munir Khauli or anyone else talking about him, every single mention would almost inevitably be followed by a huge praise for his music and approval of his talent. 

The disparity between him being so highly appreciated amongst his peers, while somehow simultaneously not being part of the researchable musical history of Lebanon (at least to me!) of the last decades, baffled me and at some point I just asked Issam for Rogér’s contact. After we exchanged some emails and he ended up sending me a selection of music recorded in the late 1970s in Beirut. While some of that material had never seen a release, others were released on his album “Fine Anyway” - back in the time, he had hand copied around 200 cassette copies of that album. 
To put it short: I was blown away! The music was a mixture of folk with touches of other genres. Maybe one could also refer to it as “singer-songwriter”, since all of the songs were Roger’s own compositions. Songs of unique beauty both musically as well as lyrically. At the same time they gave me the feeling of them being somehow time and space isolated capsules. Nothing really revealed, where they could’ve been recorded and without knowing it was Beirut, my first guess maybe would have rather been California, sometime in the 1970s. The immersive effect of his compositions and voice are just incredible. I was stunned and proposed Rogér to work on a re-release, which he politely declined, saying he had no interest in this music being reissued. 

Fast forward a year or two, Beirut had been rocked by the horrible explosion of it’s port on the 4th of August 2020. We (everybody at the label) were truly shocked and after the initial paralysis had vanished and we managed to check in on friends, whether they are ok or in need of something, thoughts on how to help with the rescue and relief efforts happening locally developed. Not being physically able engage with the support groups on site, we figured it would be the most evident idea to put together a compilation featuring some of the Lebanese musicians we had met and adore such as Ferkat Al Ard, Munir Khauli, Toufic Farroukh and Abboud Saadi in solidarity. We managed finalize the compilation within 24 hours and after we were nearly done I thought why not at least let Rogér know about it. He called me back within an hour, excited to be part of the project. In the meantime, his perspective on the idea of reissuing his music had shifted and he was welcoming the idea to make his music heard by a new generation. 

All songs written, arranged and composed by Rogér Fakhr. 

The album was licensed from Rogér Fakhr. We pay 50% of the profits of this release as royalties. Only project related costs are deductible from the gross income, research and travel costs come out of our own share. Publishing rights were not included in our agreement.

Habibi Funk 016: Rogér Fakhr - Such A Trip Through time

Avid Habibi Funk listeners may be familiar with Libyan composer / producer Najib Alhoush, who’s “Ya Aen Daly” - Bee Gee’s “Stayin Alive” cover - was included in our 2nd compilation. 

Najib’s group, “The Free Music” produced an astonishing 10 albums, all impressively strong and equally infused by soul, funk, disco and reggae. Groovy synths, thumping bass and drums and Najib’s distinct flavor collide for something special. Self-financed, all their albums are fully dedicated to their unique musical blend, a distinctly infectious groove that unfortunately didn’t make an impact outside of Libya due to the complex political situation at the time. 

When we made the selection for this album, we could have chosen a completely different number of tracks and the album would be been equally strong. There is a reason why it says “Part 1” in the title. 

Vinyl and CD come with an extensive booklet featuring background on The Free Music and Najib Alhoush, including words from Najib’s son, Yousef, as well as unseen photos and more. 

The album was licensed from the family of Najib Alhoush, the band's founder and leader. We pay 50% of the profits of this release. Only project related costs are deductible from the gross income, research and travel costs come out of our own share. Publishing rights were not included in our agreement.

Habibi Funk 021: The Free Music - Mathasebnish

Probably two to three years ago we received a message from Hassel Dehaes, who shared a 7” vinyl he had found in Belgium with us, asking whether we knew anything about it. We were immediately electrified by the immense beauty of the song and tried to find out anything about the artist. That turned out to be not very easy. Eventually, we managed to get in touch with the artist’s daughter Reem Mitten who helped us license the song from her mother and was also happy to contribute the following text about her mother’s musical career.

„My Mother's journey in music first started off when she was 17, still only a student at Lycée Dar Essalam Rabat, going by her Maiden name Douae Abd al-Rahman Hassani (now Douae Mitten.) Her only experience in music was that of a spectator, eyes for her mother, the singer, Bahija Idriss and her father, Al-Rahman Al-Hassani, a composer. My Mother's first experience in music was with the song “The way of lovers” in Egypt 1984. It was a melody composed by her father and the lyrics were written by journalist and poet Omer Battisha. This was the first time my mum had ever worked with a band, which essentially resulted into a room filled with esteemed musicians and herself. By the time, my Mother had only ever sang in front of her school friends. “The way of lovers” was originally composed for Mayada Hanawe. Due to creative differences she didn't end up singing the song. Somehow my grandmother Bahija Idriss had suggested to my mother’s father, that mum could go to Egypt, where her father had been residing, to sing the song. During that trip to Egypt, she had the honor of meeting Mohamed Abdel Wahab and that is what would be the beginning of my mothers musical journey.

“Parlez moi de lui” came to fruition due to a family visit to Belgium. A music producer there had contacted my grandfather to ask, if his daughter wanted to do a cover of the joyous french song “Parlez moi de lui.” My mother then proceeded to translate the entire song into Arabic in one evening. The following day, she was recording the song. Another important experience!

Although music was my mother's passion, her career did not exceed more than a few songs. It had been a short and sweet experience but her life took a different direction. She came on to be a stewardess for Emirates airline having many different and amazing adventures. Shortly after a couple years she went on to meet my father Alan, an amazing Irish man. They moved to London, where they still reside, and had four children, me included.“

Text by Reem Mitten

Habibi Funk 015: Douaa - Haditouni

Libyan Reggae at its peak grooves courtesy of Benghazi-born Ahmed Ben Ali. After working with Ahmed on the 12” hit “Subhana” (Habibi012), Habibi Funk is back with a full-length release focusing on Ahmed’s releases from the mid 2000’s. The tracks on the LP represent a blisteringly deep collection of heavy reggae rhythms and synthesized grooves from a singular creative force, inspired as much from Jamaican sonics as from Libyan folkloric styles, as Ahmed says, “it’s the Libyan style, not some bullshit.” 

Our first and major contact with Libyan music began five-or-so years ago, when we were invited to visit an abandoned tape factory in Tunisia. We have talked about this influential visit more at length for the Free Music release (Habibi021), if you’re interested. Anyhow, the place was astonishing. It had a room full of unused - but already printed - inlay cards for tapes and three large rooms spreading over two floors of unsold stock. A rough guess would be more than 100,000 copies already dubbed with music, many of which were produced for the Libyan market. On top of this the owner, Hechmi, also told us of another 200,000 blank tapes held in a separate unit. Much of the music we found there was clearly influenced by Jamaican music, and we soon realized how popular Reggae music had been in Libya since the 1970’s. 

Reggae in Libya has dominated the charts since its arrival in the 1970’s and flourished with some of the pioneers of Libyan reggae such as Ibrahim Hesnawi, Najib Alhoush and The White Birds Band. Composers like Ahmed Fakroun and Nasser Mizdawi also played around with the genre, although they did not dedicate their sound to it. When we started researching into more contemporary recordings, we quickly came upon Ahmed Ben Ali. Ben Ali is a Libyan singer and producer, whose YouTube channel at the time contained four songs (we later learned they had been uploaded more than ten years prior). Despite the fact that these songs seem to be pretty popular, the channel became inactive a few months after its launch. In the comment section you could read appreciative feedback, not only from Libyans but also people from all over the world who seem to share a common passion for Ben Ali’s sound. 

Generally speaking, there is not really a blueprint on how to find the musicians with whom we would like to re-release music. In this case, we did consider visiting Libya, but in the end, it turned out not to be possible for a number of reasons. We focused our efforts on online research, and eventually we were able to connect with Ahmed by phone. 

Contextualizing his own style, Ben Ali points out that, “The Libyan folkloric rhythm is very similar to the reggae rhythm. So, if Libyan people listen to reggae, it’s easy for them to relate because it sounds familiar. This is the main reason why reggae became so popular here. [...] We played the reggae Libyan style, it’s not the same as in Jamaica. We added our oriental notes to it and if you mix both it becomes something great.” With a bit of laughter, he adds that “...to me it’s still original reggae, it’s the Libyan style, not some bullshit.” 

The album was licensed from Ahmed Ben Ali. We pay 50% of the profits of this release. Only project related costs are deductible from the gross income, research and travel costs come out of our own share. Publishing rights were not included in our agreement.

Habibi Funk 022: Ahmed Ben Ali - Subhana

Cool Beans Ft.John Heinrich(Sax)

Pre-order: https://habibifunkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/alech-2

When we first decided to start Habibi Funk, a label dedicated to re-releasing „funky" Arabic music from the 1960s to 1980s, a band called Dalton was the first release we worked on. Dalton was a band from the Tunisian capital of Tunis and they played a unique mix of soul & funk with an Arabic DNA. We licensed the release from the band’s composer Fawzi Chekili, and when we spoke to him on the phone in preparation of the release he mentioned another band he was part of, called Carthago. Our work with Habibi Funk is like a big treasure hunt. There are too many great bands that fully vanished into obscurity and didn’t leave any traces in the digital sphere yet. We are so used to the internet providing all informations we might be looking for, but Carthago was one of those bands where the internet largely failed to provide any infos despite the fact that Carthago created some incredible music in the form of an highly infectious Tunisian take on disco music. Luckily most of the members of the 1970s musical scene of Tunis are still around to tell their story. 


Carthago was founded in the late 1970s as a fusion of Dalton and a second band called Marhaba Band. Both bands frequently played at hotels and night clubs in Tunis and Sousse. They had similar musical influences and despite the fact that they were competition for the most part, they came up with the idea to join forces for a new band. Musically Carthago kept on walking on the musical path of Dalton and Marhaba but incorporated disco music, a new style that was making its way to North Africa from Europe and North America. The band had quite some success on local radio and played a number of big shows with thousands of people showing up. The band’s concerts were a mixture of their own compositions as well as cover versions of the hits of the time from Stevie Wonder to Chicago. At the end of the 70s they went to Paris to record their only, self titled album. For our reissue we picked out two of our favorite tracks: „Hanen“ and the outstanding disco version of the Dalton track „Alech“ which has proved to work on every dance floor we played over the last two years. 


When I came to Tunis for the first time after the Dalton reissue I met Fawzi in person. He still lives in Tunis and still works as a full time musician though his focus has shifted more towards Jazz over the years. Luckily he did not only keep a spotless copy of the Carthago album but he also kept the master tape of the instrumental versions of the album which to this day were unreleased. Being able to add exclusive content to a reissue is something that is rare and we feel highly privileged to be able to do so. Futher more we are so happy that we will be able to add something new to the bands legacy not only musically but also visually: One day I realized that most of the releases from Tunisia I liked, be it from Dalton, Carthago or Marhaba Band had the same photographer credit. 


Hassen Turki started taking photos at a young age and when he was 18 he started going to the gigs of the bands of the time that were playing in the Marhaba Hotel which was managed by his father at the time. He became friends with the bands and ended up being the person to be asked when it came to shooting the photos for the covers of the records. After some research I managed to get in touch with Hassen and met him in his hometown Sousse. Luckily he kept most of the negatives of the photos he took so we’re more than happy to be able to share these unseen photos with whoever is interested. 


Our gratitude goes to all the members of Carthago, Marhaba Band and Dalton: Fawzi Chekili, Hedi Ben Ali (Dede), Ridha Kouhen, Ferid Ben Cheikh, Skander Almi, Hechmi Miliani, Mustapha Rehouma, Kamel Sellam, Claude Chiarello, Taoufik Sellam (Fouka), Sadok Gharbi, Fernando Marino (Nando), Jamel Bel Haj Khelifa and to Hassen Turki for allowing us to use his photos.

Habibi Funk 004: Carthago - Alech (Pre-order link in description)

pre-order: https://habibifunkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/habibi-funk-007-modern-music

Al Massrieen was one of the first bands I learned about once I discovered the tape format. They were really popular in Egypt in the 1970s and the more of their music I found on either tapes or Arabic pirate mp3 sites, the more I was becoming a fan. Only very few bands from the region can match the band’s versatility as well as their strive for innovation. Hany Shenoda is the man behind the Al Massrieen band. He is a reknown figure of the Egyptian music scene and has worked with everyone from Abdel Halim Hafez to Mohamed Mounir. Al Massrieen was his attempt to introduce his ideas of modernizing Egyptian music, heavily encouraged by Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt's only winner of the Nobel Price for literature) after discussing his ideas with him.

Al Massrieen - Sah (pre-order now)

pre-order: https://habibifunkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/habibi-funk-007-an-eclectic-selection-of-music-from-the-arab-world

"The first time I talked to Mohamed, he told me about how he left his hometown in Algeria to go to France. Shortly after he started telling me about how he met a zouk band in Paris that pushed him to open up to a different culture and mix different styles of music. Mohamed Malek was born near Oran in Algeria but left in his twenties. For Mo- hamed the huge dynamism and multiculturalism around the Parisian cultural scene did certainly play a major role in his own perception of music and expanded his influences. Since he started creating his own music, Mohamed knew that he wanted to break boundaries in order to freely express himself. He wrote and recorded many tracks among which some were shown to the world and others were kept secret. He also performed in Paris for many years, in bars or in public spaces even though music wasn’t his main source of income.
Hearing all those stories made me realize something about his art. In fact Mohamed‘s music is like a crossroad between the gloom of a sad ending and the sparkle of a new beginning‚ „Rouhi Ya Hafida“ is a song about the loss of love but the mingle between the disco beat and the Arab lyrics manage to take the song to a very powerful level. Most of Mohamed‘s work, including „Rouhi Ya Hafida“ is highly poetic. He also recorded many other songs in different styles going from acoustic to zouk or mysterious Arab experimental electronic styles in both French and Arabic. Mohamed never told us about those pieces but Jannis did find some very special tapes between the ones he keeps in his tiny but well-stocked music room. A space where he hides all of his work and for sure some of his dearest memories. Today despite his age Mohamed‘s hunger for music still pushes him to play and write songs. We are also working on releasing the afore-mentioned electronic tapes from Mallek Mohamed in the near future."
written by KhedijaDhaoui

IG: habibibfunk
FB: facebook.com/habibifunk

Pre Order

Mallek Mohamed - Rouhi Ya Hafida (Habibi Funk: An ecclectic selection of music from the Arab world)

On croyait le grand raï mort avec le ­déclin de Khaled, Cheb Mami et con­sorts, dans le meilleur des cas réduit à quelques performances vocodées dans les boîtes à chicha des périphéries urbaines. Et voilà qu’il renaît par la voix rauque et enfumée d’un quadragénaire parisien originaire de Sidi Bel Abbès, en Algérie. Trois ans après El Mordjane, disque déjà prometteur, Sofiane Saidi est de retour, accompagné cette fois par Mazalda, un groupe de musiciens lyonnais avec lequel il a déjà électrisé les scènes françaises. En studio, guitares rock et synthés analogiques aux tournures mélismatiques invitent à tournoyer sous les étoiles (el ndjoum en arabe), sur un groove vintage mouillé d’une réverbe intimiste et chaleureuse, qui rappelle moins le raï des années 1990 que celui de la décennie précédente. Car, au-delà de la fête, plus cosmique que stroboscopique, Sofiane Saidi renoue surtout avec l’âpreté des origines, mélangeant batterie et derboukas, flûte électronique et flûte de roseau traditionnelle. Adaptées de vieux morceaux raï, ses chansons suintent le blues, celui que les bergers noyaient autrefois dans la bouteille sous les oliviers. La reprise du Saïda de Cheikha Rimitti qui clôture le disque — un chant de l’exil lancinant — donne des frissons.

| Airfon/Carton Records/L’Autre distribution.

Anne Berthod

El Ndjoum 

05_La Classe Fi Las Vegas_

Some old and new-ish funky rare gems from North Africa including some songs in Tamazight.

One day, all of these tracks will only exist in amazing quality, but for now...I hope you enjoy this <3

Tracklist:
1- Azwaw - Malika Domrane (Algeria - Kabylie)
2- Ya Samra - Hamid el-Shaeri (Libya)
3- Law Kan - Cheb Araab (Libya)
4- Mabrouk - Ali Hassan Kuban (Egypt - Nubia)
5- Sultan Zamani - Mohamed Fouad & 4M (Egypt)
6- Lahbab - Aisha Kandisha's Jarring Effects (Morocco)
7- Goultili Bye Bye - Nordine Staifi (Algeria)
8- Sa3ti msh Mazbouta - Simone (Egypt)
9- Urgences - Maghni (Algeria)
10- Ayza A3eesh - Sara Said (Egypt)
11- Gahrasha - Ahmed Adaweya and Hussein & Moodi el-Imam (Egypt)
12- Edit d'Algerie -Djamal Allam (julian horn edit)(Algeria - Kabylie)
13- Ice Cream fi Gleem Instrumental - Soundtrack by Amr Diab and Hossam Hosni (Egypt)
14- Aye Leli Lelou - Nordine Staifi (Algeria)
15- Mistakkvaylit - Groupe Agraw (Algeria - Kabylie)
16- Sidi Mansour (Ma Baker) - Mohammed Hanesh (The Netherlands)
17- Cairo - "Farid Atrache" (Egypt)
18- Abdullah Dollar - Orient Express/(Hawash edit) (France)
19- Al Hadaoui - Attarazat Addahabia & Faradjallah (Morocco)
20- El-Kon Kolo Beydour - Mohamed Mounir (Egypt)
21- Del Dare Pir Misheh - Kourosh Yaghmaei (Iran)
22- Chenag le Blues - Les Abranis (Algeria - Kabylie)
23- Sebar - Les Freres Megri & Jacques Hendrix (Morocco)
24- Alby Ya Ghawy - Fouad el-Mohandes & Shwikar (Egypt)

Funk the Casbah II: An Arab Funk Mix // Yas Meen Selectress

label, dj and platform for a wide range of underappreciated music from north africa and west asia

Habibi Funk 022: Ahmed Ben Ali - Subhana

habibi funk - حبيبي فنك

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