Hamid BAROUDI: "Carvane To Bagdad" (1995)

Hamid Baroudi grew up with music in his home country, Algeria, and aged 13, he made his stage debut. Music is far more than just entertainment in Algeria. Music can be hope against oppression, shared solidarity, spirituality, medicine, trance.

Music also accompanied Baroudi to France, but after a prolonged stay, he moved on and finally settled in Germany to study art in Kassel, home of the Dokumenta Fair. Next came six exciting years as the lead vocalist of the band Dissidenten, an important calling point in his musical career.

Following the worldwide tours and four joint albums, Hamid Baroudi left "Die Dissidenten", with whom he was a pathfinder of global pop, to pursue his solo career. He worked on City*No*Mad for two years. A pop album. Full stop. A political album. Another important point. Grooves lie at the heart of City*No*Mad, the Maghreb's rhythms amalgamated with Anglo-American rock.

Since then this "political animal" has been showered with awards. On the one hand he collected further praise and prizes for his music. Three tours for Peter Gabriel's Womad Festival Organisation took him to England, Spain and Japan, he won cultural grants in his chosen home of Kassel, and conquered the top of the European World Music Charts in August 1994.

On the other hand, Baroudi also found time to perform in Bonn with Herbert Grönemeyer and Wolf Maahn in front of an audience of 200,000 at the festival against the Gulf War.

Baroudi has not only taken on the role as musical ambassador for North Africa, but also between the different religions. His performances and commitment as a modern and future-oriented thinking Muslim, is precisely the opposite of the past-fixated Fundamentalists.



Source: Www.hamid-baroudi.com/bio_en