Hasna was born in Béchar, a colonial garrison town near the Moroccan border in western Algeria. Her father had come from Morocco and all the elders in her family practiced the healing musical arts of the gnawa, a mysterious wandering people with origins in sub-Saharan Africa. As Hasna's song lyrics make clear, most gnawa are Muslim, but they still consider themselves "sons of Bambara," a reference to the ethnic group that famously resisted Islam up to the 19th century. Surrounded by music--gnawa, Berber, and Arab--Hasna also possessed five single records by the French singer Enrico Macias, and she began to learn guitar by trying to pluck out melodies from those songs. She also attended a variety of traditional musical events as a child, including the night ceremony called Diwan, a highly participatory event that brought together many of the cultural strands present in this desert crossroads.

Although her father objected to her playing music, he ultimately gave into her determination and taught her much of what she knows about it. She moved from oud to classical guitar to electric guitar, and also learned a number of percussion instruments. Her father even taught her to play the gnawa's sacred lute, the deep-toned guimbri, although he forbade her to play it in public. Hasna became a sensation on the Béchar wedding circuit and performed in that context for many years until the fateful moment when, in 1999, she was invited to Paris to take part in an Algerian womens' night at the Cabaret Sauvage. All at once, her talent was revealed and she fell in love with France, which she had visited previously as a tourist. Since then, Hasna has made Paris her home because, as she put it to Afropop Worldwide, "I like freedom."

Freedom has meant the ability to perform publicly with the guimbri, as well as chance to record. Hasna's first album, Djazäir Johara (Indigo, 2001) was rightly received as a master work. But the move has not distanced Hasna from her roots. She says her home in Paris is the scene of many musical soirées, often directed at helping people who are troubled or ill. Back in Algeria, Hasna worked with abandoned and abused women, and she has continued in that vein in Paris. Now she brings to her spiritual work the added power of being one of the most intriguing North African musicians to arrive on the world stage in many years.

Contributed by: Banning Eyre