Noura & Jeich (Feat. Noura Mint Seymali)

This Trio brings together the greatest voice of Mauritania Noura Mint Seymali and guitarist El Jeich Chighaly.

Noura Mint Seymali is a nationally beloved star and one of Mauritania’s foremost musical emissaries. Born into a prominent line of Moorish griot (West African praise singers, poets and musicians) Noura began her career at age 13 as a supporting vocalist with her step-mother, the legendary Dimi Mint Abba. From a very early age, she was trained in instrumental and vocal technique by her grandmother, Mounina, mastering the ardine, a harp reserved only for women, and singing at weddings with family. Seymali Ould Ahmed Vall, Noura's father, was similarly an important teacher, himself a seminal figure in Mauritanian music who devised the first system for Moorish melodic notation and composed many works popularized by his wife, Dimi. Seymali sparked Noura’s compositional instincts and encouraged her earliest experimentations with fusion music. Reared in this rich and transitive music culture where sounds from across the Sahara, the Magreb and West Africa coalesce, Noura Mint Seymali currently drives the legacy forward as one of Mauritania's most adventurous young artists.

Fueled by the exploratory sound of her husband Jeich Ould Chighaly’s emotive psych guitar lines, Noura & Jeich forms a formidable duo making travel in the countries of the Saharan desert. Jeich, a master of the tidinit (aka. ngoni, xalam), brings the force of yet another important line of Moorish griot to bear, adapting the tidinit's intricate phrasing to a modified electric guitar with heroic effect. His unique sound, mirroring Noura's vocal lines and refracting their melodies into the either, was born out of years of practice presiding over wedding ceremonies where solo guitar or tidinit directs the dance. In parallel to his work with Noura, Jeich remains one of Nouakchott's most sought after guitarists within the griot community until present. /p>

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LINE-UP

- NOURA MINT SEYMALI (Vocal & Ardin)
- Jeiche Ould Chighaly (guitar, Tidinit)