Malika Zarra

Malika Zarra is a Moroccanborn, French American singer, composer, and music producer now based in New York City known for singing in Moroccan Arabic, Berber, French, and English. Her music has been on the JazzWeek Topradio chart in world music.

Zarra was born in Ouled Teima, the eldest of five children to a Berber mother from the High Atlas and a father from Tata. Her family moved to Paris when she was young, but remained culturally Moroccan in the home. In school, she studied clarinet. She became interested in jazz because it was similar to Arabic traditional music in the core importance of improvisation. Eventually, she studied at the jazz conservatories at Tours and Marseilles and studied privately with Sarah Lazarus and Franoise Galais. On the Paris scene, she appeared at venues including Festival Lesprit Jazz de St Germain, SunsideSunset, and Cit de la Musique. She started to draw serious attention by singing jazz standards to her own Arabic translations.

Source: Wikipedia