Moroccan singer Hajja El Hamdaouia, considered a popular song diva in the Maghreb country, died this Monday at the age of 91 after a long illness, according to family sources cited by various local media and also confirmed by the news agency. official MAP.
Hamdaouia was hospitalized in Rabat several days ago after her health deteriorated, the same sources said, adding that she will be buried in the Cemetery of the Martyrs in Casablanca, the city where she was born in 1930.
Hamdaouia was one of the best known and recognized singers in Morocco: she always appeared on stage dressed in a traditional caftan and brandishing large bendir (tambourine), a characteristic instrument of the ‘chaabi’ genre that she always cultivated.
She sang during the reigns of three kings, Mohamed V, Hasan II, and the current Mohamed VI, and during her long artistic career, she helped popularize and dignify the Moroccan song ‘chaabi’ throughout the country, in addition to modernizing this musical genre by introducing new instruments. musicals and even an orchestra.
It had its greatest successes between the fifties and seventies of the twentieth century, but then suffered a period in which it lost its shine and fell into poverty, before being reborn again in the last decades and returned to fame.
Her greatest hits ‘Daba yji’ (‘Now it comes’), ‘Hazou bina laalam’ (‘Raising flags’) among others, have acquired the category of classics of Moroccan music, and as such are performed by a multitude of younger singers .
Last August, Hamdaouia announced that she was permanently retiring from the stage after a career of more than seventy years and then told the press that she was ill and did not want her audience to keep the memory of her of “a singer who falls on stage with her blessing. “
Amelia Warner
Amelia Warner writes all the Latest Articles. She mostly covers Entertainment topics, but at times loves to write about movie reviews as well.
