La Chanson Kabyle De L'exil

Abstract

By working from a corpus of emblematic songs from the classical Kabyle repertoire, from the 1940s and 1970s, we will attempt to identify the main lines of this mode of expression, the purpose of which is both a painful narration of exile and the constant search for a clean aesthetic that never betrays the original breeding ground. For the Kabyle artist, a song is always the vehicle of a strong emotion that never spares modesty. He will then exercise his art on the very back of the suffering experienced in the assembly lines of Automotive companies such as Renault and others, deep in the mines of Thionville, or as an electrician to the RATP, far from the mountains of his native Kabylie of more and more foggy. If he is therefore not a licensed professional singer, concerned about a career to pursue, he does have a profession of faith that he carries as a priesthood: to exhort his people to unity in the face of the adversity, whether colonial, political or societal. We will discuss the most outstanding figures: Slimane Azem, Cheikh El Hasnaoui, Akli Yahyathen and Zerrouki Allaoua. Early caught up in the unsurpassable need to make ends meet. Fragments of some of their works will be translated into French by us. We will also be interested in certain songs which are the work of female singers who either experienced exile themselves or became spokespersons for all these women left behind and who suffer in all respects from the estrangement of their husband, when it is not husband and son jointly. Due to the situation of these artists – having lived and worked (for some dead and buried) in France but having written and sung in Kabyle – we will then attempt to question their dual affiliation (Algeria & France) under the conflictual mode, participating both from here and elsewhere.