MRA

Emel Mathlouthi is the Tunisian-American singer-songwriter and producer who drew the global spotlight with her passionate song ‘Kelmti Horra’ (My Word is Free), written in 2007, which became an anthem for the Tunisian Revolution and the Arab Spring after her (recorded) street performance for protestors in Tunis went viral. 17 years and four studio albums (and one remix and one live album) later, the NYC-based EMEL – just EMEL – has reconfigured her sound and her identity, distilling a wealth of disparate artistic and political influences into a persona, an imprint, of astonishing import. ‘I want us to change the system from within, by and through women,’ she declares in the press release for MRA (a phonetic take on ‘woman’ in Arabic), and here she’s as good as her word. Every single collaborator on MRA is a woman: producers, technicians, photographers, musicians. Female guest singers and rappers feature liberally across the album’s 12 tracks, which meld everything from African trap to Arabic reggaeton, batucada, hip-hop and chaabi to juddering drum’n’bass. Malian rapper Ami Yerewolo spits fast-paced Bambara on ‘Nar’, among the contagious beats of which Emel sings ‘I am a soldier / I am a bullet’ with crystalline fury; Ukrainian rapper Alyona Alyona assists in honouring immigrant workers on the alternately angelic and punchy ‘Maurice’; ‘Mazel’ recalls the rape of a transwoman, assuaging the pain with delicate synths; ‘Lose My Mind (feat Nayomi)’ is whispered threat, a tempest of tempo changes, pure processed vocals and fierce scattergun Farsi. Genre-less and boundary-defying, MRA hits like a sucker punch. It won’t be for everyone. But it is a game-changer.