Amazigh Renaissance: The Free People

Draped in a white embroidered dress and a silver vest, Ikram Essaghir takes the stage crowned with the opulent jewellery associated with the Indigenous peoples of North Africa. Such majestic aesthetics for special occasions and festivities remain largely unchanged – Ikram echoes depictions of Queen Dihya, the legendary Amazigh warrior who resisted Arab conquests in the seventh century.

Every detail nods to her Amazigh heritage, the people who called this region home before centuries of colonisation forced a violent erasure of their culture.

Raised in Spain but originally from Morocco’s Rif region, the 25-year-old singer belongs to a new generation unafraid to sing in Tamazight (an Amazigh language). For decades, artists of Amazigh heritage avoided singing in Tamazight, fearing social prejudice. Ikram has felt those tensions close to home: “When I started to sing, even my own mother told me to do so in Spanish or Arabic, or else people would make fun of me,” she recalls.

The Imazighen (plural of Amazigh) are the Indigenous peoples of territories that today include Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania, northern Mali, Niger and the Canary Islands. In the seventh century, Arab conquests in this region forced many Imazighen to assimilate to the demands of their conquerors, including being made to convert to Islam. To preserve their identity and language, some Amazigh people moved to the isolated Atlas and Rif regions in Morocco, while in other areas, Amazigh culture was completely wiped out.

El Mehdi

Tamazight survived among pockets of Amazigh communities, but became gravely endangered in the post-independence period, when the newly independent governments of Morocco (1956) and Algeria (1962) sought to define their national identities as exclusively Arab. This Arabisation was intended to repudiate European colonial influence and foster unity, but it led to the suppression of Amazigh revolts while stifling efforts to formalise their language and culture.

Music was one of the few public arenas where Amazigh identity could be voiced. In the 1970s, Kabyle singer Idir’s anthem ‘A Vava Inouva’, inspired by an Amazigh folktale, became one of the first Algerian folk songs to gain global recognition, reaching listeners across the Mediterranean and beyond. Its refrain, ‘Oh father Inouva, open the door, shake your bracelets’, was embraced as a call for recognition and identity.

Around the same period, pioneering bands such as Izenzaren in Morocco and Les Abranis in Algeria were blending modern sounds with Amazigh lyrics, with the latter creating what some now call ‘freedom rock’. In Morocco, artists like Najat Aatabou subtly infused Amazigh influences into popular chaabi music, while later acts such as Oum brought Tamazight into jazz and soul-infused arrangements.

A turning point came in 2001, when Morocco’s current king, Mohammed VI, sought to distance himself from his father’s unpopular legacy and to curb the political Islamist movement by promoting Amazigh culture. One of his first decisions was to declare that Amazigh culture stood on an equal footing with Arab culture — a rare and significant recognition that opened space for new musical experimentation.

Traditional Amazigh music, rooted in oral traditions such as izran (a form of improvised sung poetry), has long served as a tool for storytelling, protest, and cultural continuity. Performed with instruments such as the bendir (frame drum) and the lotar (plucked lute), these songs were passed down through generations – primarily among women – as a means to safeguard identity through rhythm and verse.

In her music, Ikram takes traditional elements such as izran, Rif rhythms [Rif is the name for music from the Rif region often featuring the lotar or gimbri and tambourine], ululations, and folk instruments, and blends them with electronic beats and contemporary arrangements. Yet fusion is not always easily embraced in Amazigh circles, where many defend traditionalism and resist forms of modernisation. “It’s sometimes complicated to play with traditional Amazigh poetry and mix it with new beats – people want to preserve their identity and are afraid of experimenting,” she explains.

Still, her efforts follow other Moroccan acts that have been reworking Amazigh tradition across a range of styles. More than a decade ago, acclaimed singer Hindi Zahra showed how preservation and modernity could coexist: her 2010 track ‘Imik Si Mik’ wove the repetition and metaphor-rich imagery of izran into a jazz-inflected arrangement, carrying Amazigh cadences to festival stages worldwide.

More recently, rock band Meteor Airlines have pushed Amazigh heritage in an unexpected direction. Their dreamy, guitar-driven soundscapes incorporate Tamazight lyrics and rhythmic patterns reminiscent of traditional drum beats — a fusion that has taken them from Morocco’s underground to a UK tour with their 2024 album, Agdal.

The international success of acts like Hindi Zahra and Meteor Airlines is even more significant when considering that many Amazigh were raised in exile, like singer El Mehdi. Born Mehdi Bahmad in Morocco to a family descending from the rural Amazigh Aït Atta tribe, he grew up in Canada and France, distant from his Amazigh roots. He connects to his identity through music, weaving dance, electro and pop with North African influences.

Like many Amazigh descendants who grew up outside of the region, El Mehdi does not speak (and so does not sing in) Tamazight, yet embraces heritage through visual language. In the music video for single ‘Encore’, he wears 18th-century Amazigh jewellery and adornments loaned from the Pierre Bergé Museum of Berber Arts in Marrakech. To him, taking those pieces from a colonial institution – albeit briefly – was an act of resistance and reclamation.

“Sometimes the Amazigh influence is subtle, woven in details, and sometimes, it takes centre stage, whether in rhythm or cadence, in ornamentation or tonal choices,” he says. He believes there are many ways of honouring his ancestors, whether through an ornamental headpiece or a song’s rhythm.

“Too often, we’re made to believe that if we don’t speak the language fluently or were not fully immersed in the culture, we don’t have the right to reclaim our heritage. If we don’t fit the mould, we’re excluded. But that’s exactly the trap we were expected to fall into, after generations of being denied access.”

His sentiments echo those of other Amazigh musicians who were born and raised in diaspora communities, seeking ways to reconnect with their roots. Take Paris-based hip-hop singer, Nayra, whose facial tattoo recalls traditional Amazigh markings once used as symbols of lineage and identity. Her song, ‘Le Nord’, layers chanting and clapping patterns reminiscent of Moroccan Amazigh rhythms.

Such cultural progressions – as witnessed through emerging artists like Ikram, El Mehdi and Nayra – have been coupled with political ones. In recent years, Tamazight, which was only made an official language in Morocco in 2011 and in Algeria in 2016, has been gradually introduced in public education, signage and government communication. Yet, the full institutional support needed to make the language thrive remains in its early stages.

For El Mehdi, creating music that explores struggle and resilience is a way of expressing heritage, resonating with those who have only recently begun to acknowledge their roots. “The word Amazigh means ‘free person’, and that meaning resonates deeply – freedom from imposed identities, internalised shame, inherited silences.”

Ikram agrees. Her music is tied to the same deep-rooted search for liberty, even when it means questioning certain traditions while affirming others. One of her most popular songs, ‘Henna’, challenges the practice of arranged marriage, while ‘Habibi’ invites listeners to embrace an Amazigh identity that stands on its own, not as a variation of an Arab ideal.

Through these songs, Ikram confronts social norms and uncomfortable truths, but also stakes a claim to a cultural future that is proudly Amazigh and consciously evolving. “It’s a message that can resonate not just with Amazigh people, but with anyone who belongs to an endangered culture – one you want to protect, but also modernise and make relevant for younger generations,” she says.

“For me, reclamation isn’t just about honouring or critiquing the past,” adds El Mehdi. “It’s about facing it without letting it define our future. It’s about empowerment [and] healing, and music becomes the vessel: a space for pride, memory and for shaping a freer, more honest future with our own hands.”

Across borders and generations, Amazigh artists are building a soundscape that not only reclaims the past but reimagines the future on their own terms.