Samira Dainan explores her roots and celebrates the healing power of music with Samira’s Blues. Her research into her Arabic, Berber and African heritage led her to the music of Morocco and the Sahara. She brings North African spirituals and originals in Arabic, Tamazight and French, together with guitarist Bas Gaakeer, who is a permanent feature of the band. Samira’s Blues’ debut release, Ya Baba, relies on both the pentatonic scale and the trance-like bass and percussion prominent in the traditional music of those places.
While the focus on original compositions is not a tradition in the folk genres and scenes she works with and is inspired but, the group’s music itself is, as Dainan explains it, definitely not fusion.