Natacha Atlas
b. 20 March 1964, Brussels, Belgium. The daughter of an English mother and a part-Jewish part-Muslim father of Moroccan/Egyptian origins, Atlas spent her early childhood in the Moroccan district of Brussels. When her parents divorced she moved to Northampton, England with her mother and was sent to a boarding school in Sussex. Returning to Northampton at the age of 16, she sang with various local rock bands before giving up music to work in education and theatre for a couple of years. She returned to Brussels, where she worked as a singer and dancer in Arabic and Turkish nightclubs and restaurants and also sang with a salsa band for a short time. Relocating again to Northampton in the late 80s she sang on "Timbal", a club hit for Loca! (a group made up of local friends) before joining the original line-up of Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart. After contributing her warm Arabic vocals to their Rising Above Bedlam and touring with the band, Atlas split with the group and recorded some material for Nation Records. At Nation she soon joined Transglobal Underground, at first as just one of the loose collective of musicians who worked with the group and then subsequently as their full-time vocalist. She also worked with Jah Wobble again, singing on his Take Me To God and Heaven & Earth albums. Following the release of Transglobal's second album, International Times, Atlas started work on her solo debut.
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Albums
Top Tracks
- Mon Amie La Rose
- Mistaneek
- Kidda
- Gafsa
- One Brief Moment
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