Aiwa (band)

Aïwa is a musical collective created to ignore artificial borders between musical styles. It was founded in 1998 by Wamid and Naufalle Al Wahab, two Iraqi brothers brought up in France, who were looking for mixing their musical practice (bass for Wamid and percussions, guitar and Arabic rap for his brother) to their growing interest for electronical music they were producing. They’re trying to make the classical Arabic music heard from their parent’s records (Om Kalsoum, Abdel Halim Hafez, Fairuz…) meeting with the western music. This collective has been completed by : Severine Louvel (female singer and composer) shortly after and then Philippe Hainry (drums), Mathias Prime (guitar) DJ Sambal (turntables) and Gaël Levionnois (saxophone, flutes and keyboards) in their most recent line-up. Their meeting in 2002 with the Canadian label Wikkid records is a milestone for the band with the release of their first album in 2003, licensed worldwide : (Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, Spain, Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Algeria…) 
To this national tour must be added performances in Spain, Morocco, Switzerland , Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Italy and the UK that became the most regular destination for the band tours after France. Charlie Gillett </ref>, who was considered the John Peel of world music, discovered the band and wanted them for two performances in the same year at the program he hosted at BBC London. These radio shows and the different press coverages gave the band a good exposure in the United Kingdom. Charlie Gillett also selected them twice for his worldwide licensed compilations "World Music 2004" and "World Music 2006" . The band also appeared on several compilations all around the world over the years (Australia , France , Germany , Poland , Spain , UK , USA ...)
==Second album and remixes==
The band's 2nd album "Elnar" - "fire" in Arabic - sounds more homogenous as it has been composed for the studio whereas the first album was a collection of songs created for their live shows. Most of the material recorded for this second album blend hip hop, Arabic and world music but also explorates funk, ambient and acoustic music. The album's general tone tends towards hip hop while some tracks throw off the scent through the band's trademark - the Aïwa Sound..
The featuring of artists such as Jamalski (from Boogie Down Productions), Anissa Derkaoui (Algerian singer) and Says (X Makeena) completes Séverine and Naufalle's flow and melodies . This second opus confirmed the band reputation abroad with a distribution all over Europe and offered the band more opportunities in terms of shows in the UK, Spain, Poland, Germany, Morocco, Venezuela, Italy and of course France as well as many reviews. 
Followed then a serie of vinyl EP's from different remixers (Generic, R Cola, Banco de Gaia, Nu Skool Players, DJ Sarcastic and different Balanced Records - Winnipeg Label - artists) The Volume 2 was supposed to be published in 2009 but was postponed and finally replaced by this serie of Vinyls.
The band also worked in 2008 on the soundtrack of an exhibition of videos for The Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris. Wamid (Bass and Guembri), Naufalle (Percussions and guitar) and Gaël (Flutes, saxophone and percussions) created the music for all the videos of the exhibition called "Qantara" . The videos created by DMLG Productions and the whole exhibition were about Mediterranean heritage (history, art, science...) proposing a journey from Middle East to Europe.
==Musical Library album==
Aïwa released a musical library album for the French Label Parigo Music in 2016. "Middle Eastern Journey" proposes cinematic tales from ancient times to modern urban life. It was published in 2 volumes : the 20 main tracks on the first volume and 48 underscores including alternative versions and solo instruments on the second one . Those 68 tracks in total including hip hop, electro, jazz fusion, traditional and solo instruments were distributed digitally and proposed to film makers on dedicated platforms. Some of the tracks have been used on different videos (documentaries, commercials, and even cooking recipes ...) This instrumental album, produced by Wamid and Naufalle only, is a collection of hip hop and electro beats meeting with various ethnic instruments takes reminding Aiwa's signature with a renewed approach.
==The Dictator soundtrack==
Naufalle, the rapper of Aïwa, recorded a song for Larry Charles's 2012 film The Dictator , starring Sacha Baron Cohen.The Dictator (soundtrack) contains a cover of The Next Episode (original song by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg) under the name of Naufalle "Aïwa" Al Wahab with Mr Tibbz (american rapper from Washington DC of Sudanese descent) and Sacha Baron Cohen as "Admiral General Aladeen". The song was adapted from the original in Arabic and is the musical background of the scene in which Admiral General Aladeen is crossing Times Square riding a Camel when arriving to New York.
Category:Musical groups
Category:Musical groups established in 1998