- Silence

- Music

- Famous as a singer in his debut, Kamel Hamadi knew his heyday as a composer.

- He wrote hundreds of songs for dozens of artists.

- Music

- Spending his life between Paris and Algiers, he has not forgotten anything about the 40 years of Maghrebi music histories.

- Music

- So why did those great singers come to France?

- What is the interest of coming here?

- Some artists came to France to work even better,

- as there are many studios,

- but some did not come for singing.

- Take the case of Sliman Azem, for instance, he came here to work, I don’t know, as a salesman, he had a coffee,

- Sherif Kheddam worked in a factory, that is how he started to sing and he became a great singer as he was working in the factory.

- He did not come to sing but singing was brought to him.

- And it very frequently happened, as if singing had something fundamental in it.

- Yes, but that is to say, in the past our people,

- there were single men, hardly any women,

- or people who lived with their families here. People used to live in hostels, for instance.

- So, the only consolation, the only entertainment there was singing.

- So as soon as they know there’s a singer… there were not many theatre houses,

- at the time Maghrebi artists did not perform much in theatres. So they managed to make with it.

- As Mohamed El Kamal and Mhey Eddine Bestaji and all that, to do small cafés theatres

- where drinks are served.

- They went to cafés?

- They went to those cafés

- where the comedian played his sketchs and the singer sang and then people came, applauded.

- Did a lot of people came to hear them ?

- A lot, just people all over the place. When you hear that Sliman Azem, Hassanoui, Ahmed Ouahbi are singing in this or this place,

- then you will find a tremendous amount of people.

- They’re idols, stars.

- Did come and listen to all these singers help the workers in the factories?

- Yes, you go back home, in a way. First the lyrics, the songs are original, mainly talk about that,

- talked about exile, splitting, to be far away from your children, away from your wife, away from your parents. That was a bit of a consolation.

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- On stage, Loembe interprets a modernized song of this 30 year-old song.

- Music