Q&A: Natacha Atlas

UN Goodwill Ambassador, bellydancer extraordinaire, bicultural and multilingual -- Natacha Atlas is a bit like Shakira and Angelina Jolie wrapped up into one. The English/Belgian/Egyptian singer was a longtime member of global dance gurus TransGlobal Underground, and when she went solo in 1995, she continued with that group's fusion of Arabic music and dance beats. But this year, Atlas tried a very different kind of fusion -- she returned to the classical Arabic music of her youth, and sang it with a small, string-heavy ensemble. The resulting album, Ana Hina, has won her accolades around the world.

Atlas gave us some insight into why she made the album and what it's like growing up belonging to two cultures. She also confesses she once sang and bellydanced with a salsa group, which proves she actually beat Shakira to the punch. More after the jump.

Ana Hina is a really big departure for you stylistically. I was wondering what inspired you to take this acoustic turn?
You know, it was something I always wanted to do, but I never had the right people. As it is a fairly classical project, it needed a musical director who could understand the Western side and the Eastern side ... because we're doing Fairuz songs, and the Rahbani brothers, who wrote that stuff, had both Arabic and Western musical training. In fact, they were doing fusion long before I was. That's what I wanted to demonstrate in this. A lot of purists sort of pooh-pooh fusion and have this misguided view that it's a recent thing, but it's actually been happening for a very, very long time.

I was interested in how you chose the Fairuz songs that you did -- or any of the songs. Was your intent to pay homage to these singers?
Yeah, it was to pay homage to singers I listened to as a kid or in my teenage years.

You're playing as part of the San Francisco Jazz Festival. It seems like jazz has really expanded its purview. Do you see this album as fitting within that tradition?
I think because jazz has sort of opened its doors in a way, it allows for other things to come in. Which I think is good because I thought jazz was too linear before now, and it didn't interest me too much. But now it seems to have broadened and is moving into interesting areas.

What was it like working with Gemal al Kordi, the classical accordion player who played on a lot of the originals of these songs?
Well, he was in the electric group for a long time, so he's kind of been like my uncle for about 10 years. He's not new, but for this project, he was really important because he's the link between then and now, and he's also the link who actually played with those icons and then played with me. It was the obvious thing to do because we've been working together for a long time.

Were you at all intimidated to sing some of these songs?
No, not in front of him because I've known him for a long time and he's always encouraged me. But I think that before now, I'd thought about doing something like this, but I didn't feel that I was ready. When you're half and half like that, you're a) never quite Arabic enough and b) never quite European enough. I actually feel like we're not in between two cultures, but we're in two cultures at the same time. I used to feel intimidated by that thing of never quite being one thing or the other. Which is why I probably wasn't quite ready before. But as I've met more people like [my violinist] Sammy, I've realized it's more of an advantage than a disadvantage. But for a young person growing up, it's easy to feel that it's a disadvantage.

To feel like you're never at home anywhere.
Yeah.

But the advantage is that you can enter into other worlds that other people don't have access to. It seems increasingly in our world that people are bicultural or tricultural. And also you're multilingual, right? You've said that you dream in two languages.
Yeah, I do. There are times when I'll be dreaming in two languages, other times when I'm not. That's interesting. I'm not the only person that happens to.

I was interested in "Lamedbada." It's an Andalusian song -- an Arab-Andalusian song, is that right?
I hear different reports. The thing is so old you can't confirm. I've heard stories it's originally from Iraq and then traveled around. I've heard Turkish versions, Greek versions, an Iranian version. You know what I mean? Yes, possibly Andalusian, but possibly it is from Iraq. Who knows?

Could you talk about "La Vida Callada"?
That was more Clara's contribution. Clara is Catalan Spanish, but she was very much into Frida Kahlo and just felt she was a very strong figure artistically and also had her own duality going on. So she wrote something that she thought was appropriate. It felt right to sing in Spanish on the album.

Well, that's what's so interesting about the album, you go everywhere from American folk to a Frida Kahlo poem to classic Fairuz songs but they all seem to flow together and work together, which I think is remarkable. Did you know it was going to work when you were recording?
I felt pretty sure with Harvey Brough in charge of the arrangements that it could hang together. In the mixing stages, we sort of decided that if anything stood out as not fitting in that we'd ditch it.

Are you thinking towards the next album? Are you thinking about staying with the acoustic format?
The next album will be an electric album and then I'll go back to the acoustic project. The electric album was actually in the process of being recorded whilst doing the acoustic and then got pushed aside in favor of the acoustic coming out first. The acoustic project is a very young project and I'd like to go back to it.

A little more about your history. I read that you started as a singer in a salsa group?
That wasn't the beginning of my career, but it's something I did for a while. I was living in Brussels and I was dancing in Arabic nightclubs as a job. Then I walked into a Latin American nightclub and the singer of a band spotted me and we got chatting and then I started guest-singing occasionally. It was nice, one of the many things that I tried.

So you beat Shakira to the Spanish-singing, belly-dancing thing. You actually set the trend.
Yeah!