Khalik Hena

There is surely no sound more richly redolent of 20th-century Arabic music than the great, swooning Egyptian orchestras that accompanied famed singers such as Oum Khalthoum and Farid El-Atrache. That full-bodied, sensuously transporting aesthetic provides a constant backdrop to this mesmerising vocal performance by the French-Algerian-Lebanese diva, Warda.

Recorded live in Egypt in 1973, this album captures her in the throes of a triumphant comeback after a divorce that ended a decade spent as an unwilling housewife in a traditional marriage. The sense of joy and excitement is positively palpable in both her own languorous delivery, relishing every syllable like a lover’s name on the tongue, and in the ecstatic cheers and whistles the crowd unleash at every dramatic pause. Truly, Warda’s unhurried, 36-minute rendition of the song ‘Khalik Hena’, composed by the esteemed hit-maker Baligh Hamdi (whom she had, at this point, just married) feels like an event of epic importance. There’s a neat contemporary twist to it, too: after a brief scene-setting from the strings, a sultry funk groove kicks in with space-aged electric organ, clopping hand drums and swishing hi-hat adding a hip 70s slink to Warda’s timeless, mesmerising storytelling.