great stuff man! great read, looking forward for the album.

Thanks Habibi Funk for bringing back thius nice music to spotlight again -much respect

Sublime international sounds. Championed on Dash 'n' Verve (https://dashnverve.com/2017/10/21/habibi-funk-007)

Such a great song and artist! Thanks so much!

Pioneer Works Swing (Live)

Hailu Mergia — Yegle Nesh (Live)

Earlier this month I was in North Africa for another digging trip and ended up finding quite some records I didn’t know before or I had no copy of so I felt it was time for another mix. After every mix I make I feel like „Uhh, getting enough records I like for the next one will be tough“. But every time I end up getting proven wrong by the rich musical heritage of Arabic musicians that worked on combining local influences with western musical traditions. Just like Dalton, the Tunisian band we just re-released on our new Habibi Funk label, who are also prominently featured on this mix.

Apart from the Dalton re-release that you can hear on our soundcloud we are working on rereleasing Fadoul’s music, Morocco’s answer to James Brown, who was also featured on the first two mixes. The artist himself passed in the early 90s but thru a countless number of leads we luckily ended up finding his family in Morocco, one of the highlights of my last trip but more from this later.

For now please enjoy the new mix featuring music from Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Lebanon. If you’re in Paris catch me playing some records at Institute Du Monde Arab on the 3rd of July…

Get the Dalton single here:
habibifunkrecords.bandcamp.com/merch

And head over to okayafrica.com for the track listing: 
http://www.okayafrica.com/news/habibi-funk-jakarta-records-vintage-arabic-vinyl/

"Habibi Funk 003 Mix" by Jannis of Jakarta Records (Mix of Arabic 60s & 70s vinyl)

pre-order: https://habibifunkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/musique-original-de-films

هل تريدون الاستماع الى ما كنا نشتغل عليه الفترة الماضية ؟ يمكنم الآن أن تطلبو مسبقا إصدار " حبيبي فانك " الثالث، حيث سنأخذكم معنا هذه المرة بأنغامنا إلى الجزائر. إن أحمد مالك بمثابة إينيو موريكوني الجزائر، إذ ألف و أنتج معظم موسيقى الأفلام الجزائرية في السبعينيات. موسيقى رائعة، مفعمة بالأحاسيس و غير اعتيادية. بعد موافقة تامة من أهل الراحل، يمكنكم و أخيرا الاستماع للمرة الأولى إلى إحدى إنتاجاته، أو النقر على الرابط من أجل طلب مسبق.

I still remember the first time I heard Ahmed Malek. It was 2012. Back then I didn’t know much about Arabic music, but I was about to leave Berlin for a couple of weeks to go to Tunisia. I was working as a project manager for a music recoding session which ended up being released by Jakarta Records as the “Sawtuha” release. I knew I would have some time off during my stay and I was certain that I would dedicate some of this time to diggin. I asked some people whether they knew of any titles that I should look for. Roskow, who also ended up re-mastering this release, told me about an Algerian composer called Ahmed Malek whose music was also released in Tunisia. 

Fast forward three years: Arabic records have become my number one hobby and luckily I got my hands on a copy of Ahmed Malek’s “Musique Originale De Films” album. I already knew some of the tracks but listening to the music the way it was originally released, and not as a crappy Youtube version, made me fall in love with Malek’s compositions all the more. It manages to create this very special mood: melancholic and reflective, emotional and touching, but never depressing. Even without having seen any of the pictures created for this, it immediately brings visuals to one’s imagination. 

Around that time I became captivated with the idea of reissuing some of Ahmed Malek’s music. I knew some people had tried to locate his family but, but with no success. In the end it was an incredible amount of luck that made it possible for you to read these words and listen to this record. I had a DJ gig in Beirut playing old Arabic records and I mentioned my passion for Ahmed Malek’s music to a friend. She said she knew one person in Algier, and as much as it would be a shot in the dark, she could ask her if she had an idea of how to find Malek’s family. Two weeks went by before I heard back, and what I got was incredibly good news. Her Algerian friend was the neighbor of Ahmed Malek’s daughter! I’m not a spiritual person, but it felt like the universe wanted to see this release happen. 

I started to speak with Henya, Ahmed Malek’s daughter and she was more then happy with our idea. She assured us that her father would have loved the plan as well. She provided us with tons of awesome material, from great photos, to unseen video footage and unreleased tracks; she also told us more about her father’s life: 

Ahmed Malek was born on March, 6th 1932 at Bordj El Kiffan, Algiers. He was the oldest son of a family of 3 brothers and one sister. He went to work at a young age in factories to help his father to raise the family. His mother died when he was 12. It was then that decided he wanted to become a musician, and after graduating school he studied at the Algerian Conservatory. He gained recognition for his craft from an early stage and won several prizes and medals nationally and internationally (The "Premier grand prix des arts et des lettres de la composition" in 1972, the golden medal at the "Panafrican Festival" in 1976, and the "Prix du mérite national pour la composition musicale" in 1987). He was the conductor of the "Algerian Television Orchestra“ for many decades and represented his country at international events such as the Expo In Japan, Canada, Cuba and Spain. He passed on the 24th of July, 2008, at his home in El Mouradio, Algiers.


Habibi Funk 003: Ahmed Malek - Omar Gatlato (Unreleased version.  Pre-order link is description)

-Improv and Freestyle-
Looper/ Voice /Violin /IPhone
All of this was made "now" be now, see now, feel now

Escape

pre-order: https://habibifunkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/habibi-funk-005-the-electronic-tapes

في بداية الثمانينات، أحمد مالك في خمسيناته اكتشف الموسيقى الإلكترونية و بدأ بتجربتها في أغانيه. هذه الأغاني لم تعرف الجمهور بعد، و قد حصلنا على مجموعة منها من طرف عائلته، و نحن جد سعيدين بتقديمها و تقديم هذا الوجه الجديد من موسيقى أحمد مالك. لقد تم إعدادها و ساهم في إنتاجها المنتج الألماني " فلاكو "، المولع بالموسيقي الالكترونية و ال synth. 
هذا ليس البوم رميكس، فقد سعي " فلاكو " لانتاج البوم مدته ساعتين، مكون من اغاني شبيهة بما كانت سوف تكون عليه أغاني أحمد مالك لو أنتجها بنفسه قبل مماته. 
الألبوم بموافقة تامة من عائلة الفقيد.


In the early 1980s, Ahmed Malek was already in his 50s, when he discovered synthesizers and electronic music for himself and started to experiment with sounds. None of it was ever released but we got a huge box of master tapes from his family and we're happy to present this different side of Ahmed Malek's music. It was compiled and co-produced by Flako, a fan of early electronic and synth music. This is not a remix album though, Flako's aim was to create an album out of 2 hours of material that sounds like it might have if Mr. Malek would have finished it himself before of his death. Fully approved by the artists family.

Composed & Produced by Ahmed Malek 
Editing, Additional Composition and Production by Flako 
Illustration by Kutmah 
Layout Simone Cihlar 
Tape transfer and mastering by Roskow Kretschmann
tags

Habibi Funk 005: Ahmed Malek & Flako - Tape 12 Track 1 (pre-order link in description)

Ouda - Hamid Al Shaeri - Bass - عودة - حميد الشاعري

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

"About a year ago we started talking to Sharhabeel, one of our favorite Sudanese musicians, with the help of his son and our colleague in Khartoum, Larissa, about re-releasing some of his old music. I had never been to Sudan before and despite some great help in making the release happen we figured it would be a good idea to actually visit Sudan and finalize the release with Sharhabeel. In preparation of the trip I started to dig deeper into Sudanese music trying to identify artists and sounds to dive into. On Youtube I found a musical blog dedicated to Sudanese jazz bands run by Amin Rabih (who is a music researcher, currently writing a book on the history of jazz music in Sudan) and Yassir Awad. The Sudanese interpretation of jazz is fairly different to the Western but it opened up a new world for me of around a dozen bands and singers that I wanted to learn more about. Luckily Yassir, a Sudanese IT expert living in Khartoum, was more than happy to help me prepare my trip and learn about the musical scene of the nation’s capital in the 1970s. Kamal Keila was a name that came up here and there, coined the James Brown or Fela Kuti of Sudan. When I asked Yassir about him he said that he has extended family ties with him and that he could set up a meeting. We spent an afternoon in Kamal’s living room somewhere in the dusty outskirts of Khartoum. In our conversation it turned out that even though his career started in the 1960s, he had never released a record on vinyl and that (apart from one album which still remains to be found, he can’t remember about a cassette tape release either). He did however record sessions for Sudanese radio.
In Sudan the radio stations were not allowed to play the recordings produced by music labels on air, therefore they had their own studios and invited musicians to record music for their program. In most cases the musicians would not receive a copy of the recordings out of fear that they would release the music themselves. But luckily Kamal Keila had gotten his hands on two sessions and had kept those two studio reels all these years. Both ta- pes were in the most horrible condition with mold everywhere and obvious signs that they had gotten very wet at some point. But to our surprise they played very well. Each included five tracks. One with English lyrics and another with Arabic ones. Musically you can hear the influence of neighboring Ethiopia much more than on other Sudanese recordings of the time, as well as references to Fela and American funk and soul. His lyrics, at least when he sings in English, which indicates more freedom from censorship, are very political. A brave statement in the constitutional climate of Sudan of the last decades, preaching for the unity of Sudan and peace between Muslims and Christians. Be on the look out for the full Kamal Keila album later this year, from whom we also licenses the music from."
written by Jannis Stuertz

IG: habibibfunk
FB: facebook.com/habibifunk

Pre Order

Kamal Keila - Al Asafir (Habibi Funk: An ecclectic selection of music from the Arab world)

MOULATE SALEF
Conversation between a man and his love, a woman with long braided hair. This song is more of a stylistic exercise. Romanticism in the literary sense: in the following verse there are 8 words in Arabic that express the same idea of betrayal. (in Arabic, different words)
(man speaks)
"I'm afraid your heart will betray me,
causes me pain and betrayal,
I'm afraid that this love will torment me, and I'll be betrayed again.
(...)  "

Attarazat Addahabia - Moulate Salef مولات السالف

Sharhabil Ahmed - El Bambi (Habibi Funk 013)

Ethiopiques, Vol. 4: Ethio Jazz 1969-1974

Nètsanèt (Liberty)

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

Kamal Keila - Al Asafir (Habibi Funk: An ecclectic selection of music from the Arab world)

habibi funk - حبيبي فنك

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