Berber culture spread throughout north and west Africa beginning over 3000 years ago. The desertification of the Maghreb region between 300BC and 400AD transformed formerly rich pastures into hostile desert, forcing Berbers into either nomadic lives or else into the mountains. During the Arab and French invasions of later centuries, neither force could penetrate Berber strongholds in the high valleys of the Atlas Mountains, where they preserved their non-Arab language, and their ritual and recreational music. By now, through both natural and human cataclysms, history has blurred the old lines of Berber identity, and their deeper origins remain obscure. Most contemporary Berbers are today known by other names: Tuareg, Rif, Kabylia, Shawia, Haratin, and Shluh.

The word Berber has the same root as the English word "barbarian," hence the preference among the Kabylia--one of today's largest Berber-descended ethnic groups--for the terms Amazigh (the culture), Tamazight (the language) and Imazighen (the people). Berber history is a tale of struggle going back to the days of the Greek and Roman Empires. Ever since Arab peoples entered north Africa beginning in the 7th century, Berbers have been marginalized in many of their old homelands. French colonizers in Algeria favored Kabyles over Arabs, further inflaming conflict between Arabs and Berbers. Not surprisingly, old animosities live on today throughout the Maghreb region.

In Morocco and Algeria, it is not legal to teach Tamazight in schools. In fact, the only Berber group who have preserved the written form of their language are the nomadic Tuareg of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. Many Berbers see these language laws as part of a larger, long-standing campaign to erase their culture and history. Just the same, beautiful expressions of this ancient culture do survive amid the Arabized Islamic societies of today's north Africa.

In Kabyle villages of old, singers were accompanied by the bendir (frame drum) and t'bel (tambourine) laying down a strong rhythm, while ajouag (flute) and ghaita (bagpipe) played melodies. By the 1930s, Algerian Kabyle music had arrived at Paris cafés, accompanied by a variety of western string instruments. Later on, French Kabyle music reflected more and more Arab music conventions, particularly the use of larger orchestral backing. After Algeria won its independence, and new governments struggled to maintain language laws constraining the teaching and use of Tamazight, the music became explicitly political. Many musicians were persecuted, even killed. Others went into exile. Three giants of the early independence years are Ferhat, Aït Menguellet (who remains in Algeria, but packs theaters in Paris whenever he visits), and Idir, whose 1973 song "A Vava Inouva" ("My Little Father") was the first international hit for Kabyle music. Some argue that this song paved the way for the international success of Arabic pop rai to come.

With the rise of rai, Kabyle artists seeking to compete also embraced pop music conventions, using them to spread messages of social consciousness--including Berber history--rather different from rai's party-hardy lyrics. Singer and mandola player Abdelli recorded an album for Peter Gabriel's Real World in 1995. The fully electric, highly popular band Takfarinas features Hassen Zermani playing a unique double-necked mandole. Singer Matoub Lounes created beautiful and powerful political songs and gained huge popularity during the 1990s. Lounes was ambushed and killed in the Atlas mountains in 1998, becoming a musical martyr for the Kabyle cause.

Algeria's roots music scene today includes Kabyle Berber singers performing acoustic music. Houria Aichi, with her shawiya style, sings accompanied prominently by bendir drums playing delicate, spatial rhythms from as far south as the Hoggar Mountains in the Algerian Sahara. Internationally renowned Berber singer Djur Djura showed star talent from an early age, but her fiercely conservative family objected so strenuously to her career that they have since mounted life-threatening physical attacks on the singer. For all her success, Djur has paid a high price for living as a free woman. Through her music, her writing and film documentaries, Djur champions the condition of Algerian women, and also the nation's neglected educational system.

In Morocco, Berbers make up the majority of the population, but they--and by extension, their music--also struggle against steep political odds. Born in 1960 in Khemisset, Morocco, Najat Aatabou might have lived out her days singing at family ceremonies in her Berber village had she not been discovered by a Casablanca talent scout in 1983. But when her debut cassette "J'en ai Marre" ("I'm Sick of It") sold nearly 500,000 copies in Morocco, her obscurity ended. Aatabou composes her songs in her native language, but then translates them into Arabic or French. Recording both with orchestral backing and the spare staccato rhythms of the bendir frame drum and plucked-string, percussive lotar, Aatabou has evolved her songs of heartbreak and loneliness into humorous, frank tales of urban romance.

Perhaps the best known Berber music of north Africa is that of the Master Musicians of Jajouka in Morocco. This group received rock 'n' roll caché after catching the ear and imagination of Rolling Stone Brian Jones and beat poet William Burroughs, among others. But there are many other folkloric expressions of Berber culture yet to be discovered, recorded, and written about.

The nomadic Tuareg in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso exist far from recording studios and concert halls, but one Malian group, Tartit, has recorded and toured internationally. Their folkloric music and dance is utterly authentic and charged with the hardship and inspiration of their uncertain desert life.

Contributed by: Banning Eyre