After digging many musics from Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt, Jannis Stürtz has created Habibi Funk, a label and platform for funky/soulful/psych influenced music from the Arab world of the 60s, 70s and 80s. For us, he selects five gems, some which has been reissued those days…

 
 
 

Fadoul
Sid Redad

 
«This record somehow started my passion for Arabic funk music. I found it in Casablanca 3 years ago. Back then you could not find anything about it on google and I was blown away by it’s raw energy. So it’s coming full circle that Fadoul’s music is gonna be the second re-release on Habibi Funk. Still to this day it’s one of my favorite arabic records.»
 

Ahmed Malek
Inspecteur Tahar

 
«I only got this a week ago or so but it had been on my want list a lot longer. Ahmed Malek’s music is very unique. An Arabic take on Jazz on the same level as Salah Ragab just less known. The album is incredibly rare and was released by the Algerian government (another parallelism to Ragab) in the 1970s. Wonderful poetic and dreamy compositions.»
 

Dalton
Soul Brother

 
«Dalton’s Alech single was our first re-release on Habibi Funk. It’s the only recoding by the band that used to work as a hotel band in Tunis. With the money they made from those gigs they went to Italy and recorded this 7“ that they released privately. It’s still incredible to hear the greatness of the composition of the 2 very different tracks. “Soul Brother“ is the slow b-side, a fantastic modern soul sounding track.»
 

Les 4Des
Ya Tounes

 
«I took a chance on ebay for this record that came without sound clip. I’m lucky i did. The recording quality is very bad but “Ya Tounes” is a very interesting track. At times it has a light ska feel, a lot of cool drums and a really weird national anthem type break. One of my 5 tracks from the Arabic world ever? Probably not but you know how you get more excited for a record you newly have, right?»
 

Ammar El Sheriyi
Ammar

 
«I think a lot of people pass on Ammar’s music as most of his records have Abdel Halim Hafez on the cover and in fact the album are cover versions of Abdel Halim’s songs. Sounds boring? Listen to the music first. What this blind organ player did is very unique sounding including various try outs with early drum computers and whatnot. Asmar Ya Asmarani might have some of the toughest drums in the field ever.»