Mauritania is one of the West African musical powerhouses, boasting so many unique and distinctive styles from its many ethnic groups. Yet Mauritanian music has nowhere near the amount of international exposure as that of its more famous neighbours such as Mali and Senegal. Noura Mint Seymali is changing that.

Noura is an iggawen – a hereditary griot. The classical Moorish repertoire is her birth-right, a music deeply rooted in both the Arab and Berber cultures of the north and the sub-Saharan traditions of the south. Together with her husband Jeich Ould Chighaly, Noura is taking those sounds to the world, and incorporating the sounds of the world in turn. Their music is unmistakably Mauritanian, but suffused with crunchy, psychedelic garage rock. Traditional instruments such as the ardin (harp) and tidinit (lute) meet modern rhythms and basslines, joined in the middle by Jeich’s electric guitar, tricked out with a bunch of extra frets for intoxicating microtonal flourishes. And above it all is Noura’s voice, commanding and piercing but with a subtlety and suppleness that caresses the classical Hassaniya poetry on which the lyrics are based.

Her last two international albums (Tzenni in 2014 and Arbina in 2016, both on Glitterbeat) both received universal acclaim, reaching #1 in the World Music Charts Europe and Transglobal World Music Chart. Her next, highly anticipated album, Yenbett, comes out in November, promising a fresh brand of Moorish desert psych and reinterpreted gems from the depths of the griot tradition.

Walking in the footsteps of her stepmother, the renowned Dimi Mint Abba, Noura continues a powerful female lineage – both familial and spiritual – of musicians who bear the awesome tradition of Mauritanian classical music, take it in exciting new directions, and open it up to whole new audiences around the world. We are delighted to announce Noura Mint Seymali as the recipient of the WOMEX 25 Artist Award.

From the 1970s to the early 2000s, the cassette was king in Syria. Viewed as a whole, these small, compact packages of art represent a self-portrait of the country in a very specific era; the Syrian Cassette Archives are helping to reveal that self-portrait. Founders Mark Gergis and Yamen Mekdad started the Syrian Cassette Archives in 2018 as a repository for their combined personal collections of tapes gathered from stalls and markets across Syria. But the project quickly expanded.

The online version of the Archives now holds audio and images of over 400 cassettes (increasing all the time), spanning all sorts of genres, from folk to classical to pop to religious, and even recordings such as birdsong, spoken-word comedy and poetry. They also reflect the heterogeneous nature of Syria’s population, representing Kurds, Assyrians and Armenians alongside the majority Arabs, as well as non-Syrians who live within the country. The website has further grown to encompass interviews, deep dive articles, mixtapes and more, giving even more backstory and wider context to the sounds within.

As well as gaining these recordings a wider recognition and an international listenership that they would have never otherwise received, the Archives also serve the crucial function of preservation. They showcase a body of culture at risk from obsolescence, decaying magnetic tape, civil war and politically-motivated destruction. Through digitisation, re-publication and research, the Archives are making sure that these time capsules remain alive for the Syrian people and humanity in general. As Syria moves forward into its future, its peoples’ histories are more important than ever; it is for their invaluable and unwavering support for the people, music and culture of Syria that the Syrian Cassette Archives was offered the WOMEX 25 Professional Excellence Award.

After open and constructive discussions with the WOMEX team before the award ceremony in Tampere, SCA directors Mark Gergis and Yamen Mekdad took the opportunity at the Closing Ceremony to decline the award on stage. Read more about this here.