Discography Awalin with Steve Shehan (Safar/Naïve - 2009) Tamghart in (Reaktion - 2010)
Djanet
Taken from the album 'Tamghart in'
Baly Othmani’s son continues his father’s work while forging his own musical road. His music is at the crossroads of many influences: traditional Tuareg tindé, ishumar guitar, Arabian oud, reggae, and Western rock'n'roll.
A native of Djanet, a small town in the heart of the Sahara that became part of Algeria with the postcolonial division of territory, Nabil is above all a Tuareg, like the majority of the area’s population. He is nourished by that culture, with its rules for life, its code of honor, its language (tamashek), its cultural heritage, its knowledge of how to live well within the fragile environment in which it evolved.
In the Othmani family music has been unavoidable for several generations; first with Khadija, Nabil’s grandmother, a tindé musician and a famous singer, with his great-uncle Othman Othmani, the inspired poet, and of course with Baly, his father... This iconic figure of Djanet adopted the Arab lute, the oud, as his means of expression, using Tamashek texts deep with meaning for the Tuareg community, and traditional rhythms… A new genre was born.
From his father, he learned by listening. Very early, the evidence was obvious: Nabil picked up the oud whenever it was put down in the house, then Baly gave him his first guitar. He was thirteen years old. Talent did the rest…
Excelling on both oud and guitar, Nabil is endowed with musical intuition and a very fine accuracy of tone. In both of these styles - which in his hands sometimes mingle - he interprets the existing repertoire while enriching it with his own creations, in which one finds, as with Baly, a flavor that results from the sharing and blending of sources.
After the premature death of his father, Nabil took over the group and performed on various stages throughout the world: Algiers (Panafrica Festival), Antwerp, Amsterdam, Montreal, Aulnay-sous-Bois and Hachères (Africolor Festival)…. he also began a collaboration with Steve Shehan that produced a first album in November 2009.
It is thus very obvious that Nabil is at once continuing the work of his father while at the same time finding his own musical path.
