Five years have passed since the death of the singer of,”A vava inouva” Idir, whose real name was Hamid Cheriet, born on October 25, 1949 in Ait Yenni, Kabylia, Algeria, and who died on May 2, 2020 at the Bichat hospital in Paris after a long illness, was an Algerian Kabyle singer, songwriter and musician. He is one of the leading ambassadors of Kabyle song.
Idir was destined to become a geologist, but a 1973 stint on Radio Alger changed the course of his life: he replaced the singer Nouara at the drop of a hat, and his Berber-language song “Vava Inouva” toured the world unbeknownst to him while he was doing his military service. It quickly became a worldwide hit in the 1970s.
This Kabyle song, with simple vocals and guitars, is considered the first big hit to come directly from North Africa, broadcast in 77 countries and translated into 15 languages. A French version was performed by the duo David Jisse and Dominique Marge in 1976. It represents the affirmation of a certain identity, a return to roots deeply rooted in the history of Kabylia.
Immersed from childhood in the songs that marked daily life in Kabylia, and inspired by his mother’s taste for poetry, Idir spent half a century using his voice to defend and recognize Berber identity and culture.
A man of fusion and adept at cultural cross-fertilization, he has also sung with numerous Algerian, European, African and other stars. Idir’s influence on other generations of singers is immeasurable. He inspired vocations, encouraged and produced artists like Matoub lounes. Not only that, he has also performed duets with non- Berber-speaking Algerian singers such as Khaled and Mami. On his album,”Identités”, released in 1999, he sang with Bretons, with Scottish singer Karen Matheson, with Ugandan Oryema, with Malian Ramata Diakité, and with French singers such as Maxime Le Forestier. He later sang with Charles Aznavour, Henri Salvador and Patrick Bruel.
All these people had great admiration and consideration for him. Beyond his status as an artist, it was his qualities as a person, his humanism, his wisdom, his erudition and his benevolence that made him so consensual.
Idir was also a tutelary figure, a fermenter and transmitter of culture. He didn’t confine himself to a kind of Kabyle ghetto. He was open to other cultures, other sounds, other identities, and drew inspiration from them to enrich the Berber heritage.
