''Deseos'' () is the 2005 debut solo

album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

of the Sahrawi singer

Mariem Hassan Mariem Mint Hassan (; May 1958 – 22 August 2015) was a Sahrawi singer and lyricist. She usually sang in Hassaniya, an Arabic variant spoken mostly in Western Sahara and Mauritania, occasionally singing in Saharan Spanish. Biography Life Mar ...

. The album was recorded at Axis estudios in

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, and produced by guitarist Baba Salama, who died of

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia; pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and produce high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or '' ...

one week before the release of the album. With the use of two electric guitars (played by Baba Salama and Boika Hassan, Mariem's brother) and two (played by Fatta Sadaf and Leila), the album had been hailed as a fresh actualization of the traditional Sahrawi Haul traditional music. The song "La Tumchu anni" is one of the highlights, a picturesque desert

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

. It also contains one of Mariem's most known songs, "La Intifada", about the 2005 Sahrawi Independence Intifada. "El Chouhada" is dedicated to her three dead brothers, who were killed fighting during the

Western Sahara War The Western Sahara War (, , ) was an armed conflict between the Sahrawi indigenous Polisario Front and Morocco from 1975 to 1991 (and Mauritania from 1975 to 1979), being the most significant phase of the Western Sahara conflict. The confl ...

, while in "Mutamaniyat" she asks God for the healing of her

breast cancer Breast cancer is a cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a Breast lump, lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, Milk-rejection sign, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipp ...

Track listing

References

2005 albums Mariem Hassan albums Arabic-language albums 2000s Spanish-language albums {{world-album-stub