Meeting Souad Massi: “The world is fragile, and I’m afraid for the future of our children”

On a sweltering hot afternoon in Paris, Souad Massi sits in the corner of a café, talking about pain, despair, hope and the intriguing, slightly spooky cover of her bravely original new album, Sequana. It shows the most successful female singer-songwriter in the Arabic-speaking world facing the camera with each of her eyes covered by a daisy, their long stems dangling down her cheeks. “I put those flowers [on] because I believe in nature and the force of nature,” she says. “It’s hard to find good things now. I have had a bad time in my life, and it was hard for me.” I know that she has been divorced, so was the album a reaction to that? “It was more than just my divorce… I don’t want to explain. I put it all in my songs.” Daisies, she says, were one of the traditional flowers of Easter, the season of re-birth. “It’s like I died and became alive again. Because I have no choice. I have children and I have Berber blood. I had to survive”.

Sequana is, in part, an album about her survival. And though her songs are in Arabic or French, it’s well worth checking out the translation of her thoughtful, often poetic lyrics. There are political songs that deal with her despair and reaction to global politics, and there are personal songs that deal with darkness or insanity. And yet this is certainly not a bleak album – there’s optimism and hope for a better future. As ever with Massi, many of the songs are influenced by Western folk and country music, which is, she says, “my first love, from since I was young until now.” But there’s greater variety than before, thanks in part to help from Justin Adams, who produced the album, and played on every track apart from the opener, adding electric and acoustic guitar and percussion.

Watch: Souad Massi 'Une seule étoile'

How does she explain the new approach? “I think it came naturally, as I matured. I am more concerned with what is happening in the world. A lot of people are angry now. I feel we are all prisoners and I’m angry about that… because everything depends on the big powers, Russia and China, and money is power. The world is fragile, and I’m afraid for the future of our children.”

And so the opening ‘Dessine-Moi un Pays’ (Draw Me a Country) is a song about refugees and her own exile from Algeria, 23 years ago, when she moved to France after receiving anonymous threats, presumably from fundamentalists. She says it’s about “the images of childhood that have been lost,” and a longing for “no corrupt rulers and no evil wars.” And the final ‘Victor (Le Son de la Main)’ is a reminder of the horrors of dictatorship, a tribute to that great singer-songwriter Víctor Jara, who was tortured and killed by the Pinochet regime in Chile in 1973. She first heard his work when “my uncle played his music in Algeria.” The title-track is for her daughters, now aged 16 and 11, and their friends who are also “afraid of the future, worried and angry… and I say to them, ‘you are right, but you have to be optimistic… if I give you roses, look at the beauty, forget the thorns’.” The title ‘Sequana’ refers to the Gallic goddess of the River Seine back in Roman times – also the goddess of healing.

The personal songs are equally intriguing and varied. ‘Ciao Bello’ is a “droll, funny song about divorce – but it’s not about me, it’s about a friend of mine!” But then, in complete contrast, there’s her Arabic translation of ‘Hurt’ by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, which was made famous as an intense and pained country classic by Johnny Cash. How does she relate to those bleak lyrics that begin ‘I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel’? “It’s beautiful poetry,” she says. “Very, very strong words. There are a lot of things I can’t express myself, so I say it in this song.” Is that because she feels that it relates to her experiences? “Yes – because a lot of people hurt me.”

Watch: Souad Massi 'Dessine-moi un pays'

The most startling song on the album, ‘Twam’, is a pounding, furious study of schizophrenia and a woman ‘lost and without a soul for company’ for whom ‘madness has overtaken reason.’ It’s a reminder that Massi once played in a rock band, back in Algiers, and features Adams playing electric guitar and bendir percussion. He says his role as producer was to “steer the arrangements and colour the whole thing. She had the album written and demo-ed, so it was pretty much there.” Brought together by the album’s executive producer and co-ordinator Maggie Doherty, the pair clearly got on very well. Massi describes Adams as being “like fresh air. I needed someone with more musical experience than me, and he helped me.”

Adams was clearly fascinated by bringing out the links between Massi’s country influences and North African styles, and “discussing the feel and reference points – which is funny, because I’m into Algerian music, and I was the one saying ‘we can make this a little more chaabi’.” He was also excited to be working with “the incredible Algerian musicians” Massi had chosen, including guitarist Malik Kerrouche, banjo and mandole player Abdenour Djemai and Brazilian percussionist, Adriano Dos Santos. Apart from the African, country or chanson influences, there’s a bossa nova track, ‘L’Espoir’ (Hope), on which “the African pulse is still there,” says Adams. There’s also a string quartet on two tracks, flute playing from the adventurous Naïssam Jalal, and vocals and guitar work from another Victoires Du Jazz award-winner, Piers Faccini, who wrote the optimistic ending to ‘Mirage’, an African-influenced song of spiritual redemption.

Massi’s remarkable career started in Algiers where she studied classical music (as well as civil engineering) and played in flamenco and rock bands before fleeing to France in 1999. She sang at the Femmes D’Algérie festival, was signed to a major record label and went on to become massively popular across Europe and the US, as well as the Maghreb and Middle East, thanks to her charming, sad-edged Arabic country fusion. Her album El Mutakallimûn, seven years ago, saw her moving on from songs of love and tristesse to exploring political ideas, reacting to the rise of Islamic State by praising the creativity and tolerance of earlier Muslim civilisations.

Despite her success, Massi says she is still “a very melancholic person” who fears that she will never be happy again – “I don’t know why. I should take some medicine for that!” But the one time she is always cheerful is when she is playing live, because “I feel free on stage.”

This article originally appeared in the November 2022 issue of Songlines magazine. Never miss an issue – subscribe today