Ya Balad Bachar Mar-Khalifé

• 1 Kyrie Eleison 04:46
• 2 Balcoon 04:40
• 3 Lemon 04:06
• 4 Layla 03:49
• 5 Yalla Tnam Nada (feat. Golshifteh Farahani) 04:16
• 6 Wolf Pack 04:24
• 7 Ya Balad 03:45
• 8 Madonna 05:50
• 9 Laya Yabnaya 05:24
• 10 Ell3 02:39
• 11 Dors mon gâs(e) 03:55
• Total Runtime 47:34

Info for Ya Balad

Bachar Mar-Khalife is a French Lebanese singer, composer and a multi-instrumentalist. He has collaborated on many projects that fuse jazz, world music, electronic and hip-hop with artists as diverse as Bojan Z, Carl Craig, Francesco Tristano, Murcof and Kery James. Ya Balad ('O Homeland') is his third album and its central theme is Bachars' lost proximity with his native country Lebanon. He talks about the nostalgia that connects him to his roots and the loss of memory leading him onto a path of peregrination.

Mixing piano, harpsichord, percussion, drums, synthesizers, melodica and nay, this third album attempts to reconcile the musical path Bachar has taken whilst still singing in Arabic as his central mean of expression.

Bachar Mar-Khalifé is a French Lebanese singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist.He graduated from the Conservatory of Paris and worked with conductors Lorin Maazel, James Gaffigan as well as with the Orchestre national de France and the Ensemble intercontemporain. He has collaborated on many projects that fuse jazz, world music, electronic and hip-hop with artists as diverse as Bojan Z, Carl Craig, Francesco Tristano, Murcof or Kery James.

Bachar Mar-Khalifé
Born in Beirut, Lebanon, on 13 February 1983, Bachar Khalife’s first encounter with stones was when his comrade Kifah, hiding in a tree, threw a well-sized rock that hit him in the head. That was his first encounter with stones.

In 1988 he was transferred to Algiers. The day after his arrival, he fell in the Chriaa mountains. They covered his injured head with a piece of bread. That day, all of them raised their two fingers up in solidarity.

A year later it was off to Paris, where he would be kept for the next 19 years. At the age of 11, after he had a fight with his older brother Rami, over “who’s gonna get the ball from behind the wall of the garden today?”, Bachar drew a white horse with wings and rode it to get the ball.

In 1998, he accompanied his father Marcel to the Justice Court in Lebanon. Upon entering the court, they were greeted with a standing ovation along with clapping, as though the audience was expecting to hear someone sing a song.

In September 2000, on the Champs-Elysees, wearing the black and white kaffiyeh won him a beating. The cops did not arrest any of the aggressors and asked Bachar if he could return the phone that he reportedly stole, which was actually his own phone. On the next day, all of them raised their two fingers up in solidarity.

Two years before that, the cops fined him 100 Francs for spitting on that same avenue (he was sick) and was summoned to a hearing by the police because he spit on that same avenue (he was sick).

In July 2006, during his summer vacation in Lebanon, Bachar spent an afternoon playing football with his cousin Kiril and a few barefoot kids at a school that hosted too many people for a summer vacation. All enjoyed it very much.

That summer, he left Beirut on the Mistral boat. The trip was very long.

Today, standing on his balcony, looking over to his neighbors’ balcony, he noticed them noticing him looking at their balcony. He continued to notice them pretend not to be looking at him. At this point, he, his neighbors and his neighbors’ neighbors were all aware of each other looking at one another but pretending not to be intruding on each other’s solitude.

At this moment of the day, he wished that all of them looked at each other’s white wings thrust and all together raised their two fingers up again.

Booklet for Ya Balad