Emel Mathlouthi

Sometimes you have to take control of yourself. Just a little, and above all, with strength.
Emel has done just that with her fourth album, which is unlike anything you have ever heard from her. MRA is a danceable, hard-hitting new birth.
Since her debut on the international scene in 2012 with her album Kelmti Horra, Emel
has always offered music that involves listeners with intensity. Music with «free speech» («Kelmti Horra» in Arabic) and a true soundtrack to revolutions. With MRA, Emel aimed to deconstruct in order to rebuild everything, to stimulate herself, «so that music remains alive», she says. The result is a powerful, salvific and feminist album. Powerful through feverish productions, hip-hop, pop and reggaeton — the perfect attire for battle, as evidenced by the album opener Massive Will, in which the instruments hit the ear.
Salvific through her evocative power and rallying lyrics, worthy of the greatest manifestos: “My voice has no limits / my voice has no end», she proclaims in Souty.
Feminist by name alone, MRA meaning «woman» in Arabic. But a woman who does not
respect codes. Feminist also, because the album was written, conceived and produced
exclusively by and with women.
With MRA, Emel wants to create a movement of tired but tireless women. Alongside Camélia Jordana, Nayomi, Alyona Alyona… women who sing, rap, produce, write in English, Arabic or French, but who all share the same language and the same fight. «My responsibility is to carry their voices at the same time as I carry mine,» affirms Emel.
MRA is a collection of 12 sovereign tracks, with electro productions embellished by Emel’s enchanting voice, with collaborations that are sometimes rapped with unifying lyrics. These songs are imagined through a hip hop and pop playlist created by the singer, featuring artists like Aya Nakamura, Rosalia, Taylor Swift, Charlie XCX, and Jay-Z.
To counter the world’s violence by dancing Emel is a woman of the world: Arab, French, and now American. She is a feminist musician who realized that she had not given enough voice to women before surrounding herself with them. A woman with contradictions, forced by necessity to stop being what she is
not. For all these aspects, none — on its own — fully defines her. MRA is the result of these realizations. To achieve this, she needed to rise from the ashes («I will rise again like a Phoenix» she recalls in Rise). She says in the track Nar, which is inspired by the message and aura of superstar MIA: «I am a warrior, a witch, a superheroine».
To deconstruct in order to better rebuild, but together. Come and sing with her in unison on Lose My Mind, an Arab reggaeton song with an exquisite vocal interplay. And on Idha’s magnified rap, inspired by freedom («If one day the people desire life, destiny must curve»).
Let’s join Emel on I’ll Leave, an electro declaration of love to her father, who passed on to her the love of music but above all the empathy that, sadly, she does not see in the world («Father, they have lost their mind»). In Maurice, a collaboration with Ukrainian rapper Alyona Alyona, let’s honor this Ivorian immigrant who was fired for taking a break. We cannot escape the evocative power of Mazel, co-produced with Pénélope Antena and featuring delicate synths. A track that takes us to a Tunisian village to narrate the story of the rape of a trans woman…
Let’s take back the reins of our destinies, as Emel urges us to do with her stunning album MRA. Mazel, by the way, which means «again». Despite the threatening awfulness of the world and its violence, let’s fight on.
And never forget to do it together, by dancing.