Lounis Aït Menguellet

Born in 1950 in Ighil Bouammas, Kabylia, Lounis Aït Menguellet is one of the towering figures of contemporary Amazigh song. Since his late-1960s debut he has built a body of work that sits between song and poem: his lyrics, written entirely in Kabyle, look closely at love, exile, the human condition, and the political fate of his people. Reserved in interviews and present mainly through his albums and concerts in Tizi-Ouzou, Paris, and Montréal, he holds a singular place that is at once popular and deeply literary.