AÏT MENGUELLET

Lounis Aït Menguellet is certainly one of the most popular and endearing artists of contemporary Kabyle song, a poet who has become the symbol of the Berber identity claim. About the events that have shaken Kabylie in recent years, he says that, equal to itself, the region is a bastion of protest and that it has always been at the forefront of struggles. "I talk about Kabylia in my own way, in order to bring something to make things evolve", before hastening to add that he never does politics.

People recognize themselves in the social malaise depicted by Aït Menguellet. His texts contain this dose of subversion necessary for the awareness of a people who claim their identity. Lounis Aït Menguellet disturbs. On October 25, 1985, he was sentenced to three years in prison for “illegal possession of hunting and war weapons”. He was placed in solitary confinement for three months. Despite the vagaries of the economy and human ingratitude, he remains the most popular of Kabyle singers. And especially the densest and deepest. Because he was able to keep a perfect balance between inspiration and technique and he is a highlight of modern Kabyle song and contemporary Algerian song.
Neither a philosopher nor a thinker, just a poet (“I've been told it so often that I'm beginning to believe it”), Lounis forbids himself from giving lessons in his songs. "I'm just observing. It can be right or wrong. My words are not general truths. But, when I say them, it makes me feel good”. With simple words, he recounts the life of the simple people he meets, and knows how to convey an emotion that touches an ever-growing audience, who flock to his concerts. And, with modesty, he adds: “I am an ordinary man, more ordinary than the ordinary people”.