A-wa

Three sisters from Israel, performing together as A-Wa, merged centuries-old Yemenite melodies with hip-hop, reggae, pop, and electronic dance music to produce the breakout single "Habib Galbi" in 2015. Their polished yet distinctly border-crossing sonic identity drew global attention well before the release of their second album, Bayti Fi Rasi, in 2019.

Raised in the modest agricultural settlement of Shaharut in southern Israel, Tair, Liron, and Tagel Haim sang and danced from an early age. As adults the siblings began working together, mining their family background to recover a trove of nearly vanished chants and folk pieces in Yemenite Arabic. They wove these traditional elements into their broader tastes for hip-hop, rock, R&B, jazz, and reggae, appearing at local festivals and circulating homemade videos. After recruiting Balkan Beat Box’s Tomer Yosef to produce their recordings, the group sharpened its hybrid style and scored a major success with the 2015 debut album’s title track “Habib Galbi,” the first Arabic-language song to top the Israeli pop chart.

In the years that followed, A-Wa performed at international gatherings including Womex, SXSW, and Montreal’s International Jazz Festival while preparing a new project with another Balkan Beat Box member, Tamir Muskat. Issued in 2019, the resulting album Bayti Fi Rasi broadened the ensemble’s multicultural palette and took its thematic core from their great-grandmother’s migration out of repressive Yemen to Israel in the late 1950s.