Najm Allal (, born 1966) is a singer, guitarist and writer of lyrics in Spanish from

Western Sahara Western Sahara is a territorial dispute, disputed territory in Maghreb, North-western Africa. It has a surface area of . Approximately 30% of the territory () is controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR); the remaining 70% is ...

Biography

Life

He was born in a

nomadic Nomads are communities without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the population of nomadic pa ...

family at the ''Ued'' Hawa, near

Smara Smāra (also romanized Semara, , ; ) is a city in the Moroccan-controlled part of Western Sahara, with a population of 57,035 recorded in the 2014 Moroccan census. It is served by Smara Airport and Smara bus station. History The largest city in ...

(Western Sahara) in 1966. All his brothers and sisters do poetry, and his brother Mohamed Lamin and Najm were musicians. His father worked in a Spanish company who constructed a road in the zone. In 1975, he fled with all his family to

Tifariti Tifariti () is an oasis town and the temporary capital of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, located in north-eastern Western Sahara, east of the Moroccan Berm, from Smara and north of the border with Mauritania. It is part of what Polisario ...

, then Mahbes and finally

Tindouf Tindouf () is the main town, and a Communes of Algeria, commune in Tindouf Province, Algeria, close to the Algeria–Mauritania border, Mauritanian, Algeria–Western Sahara border, Western Saharan and Algeria–Morocco border, Moroccan borders. Th ...

. The next year he started school in the

Sahrawi refugee camps The Sahrawi refugee camps (; ), also known as the Tindouf camps, are a collection of refugee camps set up in the Tindouf Province, Algeria, in 1975–76 for Sahrawi refugees fleeing from Moroccan forces, who advanced through Western Sahara dur ...

. He takes secondary education in Algerian high schools. When he finished his studies, he had to do

military service Military service is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, air forces, and naval forces, whether as a chosen job (volunteer military, volunteer) or as a result of an involuntary draft (conscription). Few nations, such ...

, where he learned the

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...

and acoustic guitar. He subsequently joined the SPLA in 1986, as part of the Sahrawi

military band A military band is a group of personnel that performs musical duties for military functions, usually for the armed forces. A typical military band consists mostly of wind instrument, wind and percussion instruments. The conducting, conductor of a ...

. In 1990 he was intended to the frontline, where he composed his first hit and one of his most known songs "''Viva el POLISARIO''" ("''Long live the POLISARIO''"), where he describes the conquest of a Moroccan position.Nar – Nayim Alal
Nubenegra.com

Career

In 1997, he was moved back to

, where he joined the musical agrupation of the

Wilaya A wilayah ( or ''wilāya'', plural ; Urdu, Pashto and ; ) is an administrative division, usually translated as "state", "province" or occasionally as "governorate". The word comes from the Arabic root "''w-l-y''", "to govern": a ''wāli''—"g ...

El Aaiun Laayoune or El Aaiún (, Latn, ar, al-ʕuyūn , , ) is the largest city of the disputed territory of Western Sahara, with a population of 271,344 in 2023. The city is the ''de jure'' capital of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, though it ...

in the Sahrawi refugee camps, as he left the Army. That year he got in touch with the people of the Spanish music label Nubenegra, and he started to collaborate as guitarist in many editions of the label, most notably on the v.v.a.a. album '' Sáhara tierra mía'' ("''Sahara land of mine''"). That album contains "''Viva el POLISARIO''" and another of his most known works, the theme "''Canta conmigo''", ("Sing with me"). He also joined the Sahrawi band Leyoad in 1998, touring Europe with the band that year, and again in 2002 presenting the album ''

Mariem Hassan con Leyoad Mariem Hassan con Leyoad is a 2002 collective album by 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 ...

''. In 2003, he released his first solo album, ''Nar'' ("''Fire''"), sung in

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, and giving more protagonism to his electric guitar, in a similar way as the

Mali Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the List of African countries by area, eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over . The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east b ...

blues groups. He is considered one of the innovators of Western Sahara's traditional music, the "'' Hawl''". His work has been added to the World Music National Geographic database. The character of some of Allal's lyrics is highly charged politically; this reflects political uncertainties which

has faced in recent years.Nayim Alal – National Geographic World Music
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Discography

Studio albums

* 2003 ''Nar''

Featured in

* 1998 ''Sáhara tierra mía'' (CD 2 of '' Sahrauis: The Music of the Western Sahara'') * 2002 ''

'' * 2004 ''Medej – Cantos antiguos Saharauis'' * 2007 ''Hugo Westerdahl – Western Sahara''

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Allal, Najm Sahrawi singers People from Smara Living people 1966 births Spanish-language singers Blues guitarists Sahrawi dissidents