Past and present collide with A-WA’s Habib Galbi
Tair, Liron and Tagel Haim grew up in a family of six siblings in the tiny village of Shaharut in southern Israel, not far from the Egyptian border. From a young age, the three sisters studied music, sang, danced and performed together and separately. They formed A-WA and last year released their debut album Habib Galbi (Love of My Heart). Inspired by Yemenite women’s chanting, the album blends old folk songs from the region set against contemporary dance and hip-hop beats. We talked to Tair, who is playing a handful of West Coast dates this summer with her sisters, about the band.
Q: What can you tell us about the inspiration behind Habib Galbi?
A: Women in Yemen, like our grandma, would create their songs. It was the only way they could express their emotions and say whatever they felt. They couldn’t participate in the men’s world of learning the Torah and being part of the synagogue services. They just invented songs while working and taking care of the house and the kids. They passed them down orally from one woman to another. We remember as little girls our grandma singing these songs and it was fascinating. It sounded so tribal and out of this world. We just wanted to know more about it. We were really curious about our culture and family roots.
For our debut album we decided to make a place of honour to these songs. We collected some of the folk songs we grew up listening to and gave them our own touch. We had to change the structures and had to add parts to make it more poppy and accessible. We added our vocal harmonies of course because we were inspired by Motown singers and jazz harmonies. And we love hip hop. We naturally combined it with beats.
How did you collect the songs — are they based on your own memories, did you go around and ask people in the villages?
Not only memory. We met a lot of the old people of the tribe. And we asked grandma many questions and we collected old vinyls. It was like finding a treasure. It wasn’t easy for people to tell us because some of them just want to be an Israeli now. But we kept exploring and asking questions and teaching ourselves and learning from Yemenite singers. It’s been an amazing journey to take our biggest influence and mix it with other musical influences that we love.
What do you have planned for your second album?
It’s going to be a concept album based on a true family story of our great-grandmother travelling from Yemen to Israel and how she paved the way for us to grow up in a better place and in better conditions. It’s going to be original. We’re going to keep the sound, of course, but develop the production. We’ve grown so much. We know how we want it to sound. So we just can’t wait to finish this tour and go back to the studio and record this album and tell these amazing stories. Will you record in Israel again? Yes. It’s very important to record at home. Of course we would like to collaborate with other artists, maybe someone who is big in America or in Europe.