Biography
Born in Marrakesh in 1950 to Jewish parents living in predominantly Islamic Morocco, Sapho moved with her family to France at age sixteen, though she pursued her education at a Swiss boarding school. By eighteen she had settled independently in Paris, where she studied acting while busking with guitar and voice on the city’s streets.
A fellow musician soon urged her to try out for Le Petit Conservatoire de Mireille; she abandoned acting and committed fully to music. A circulated demo secured a contract with RCA, which issued Le Balayeur du Rex in 1977, yet the album drew scant attention. After a short period working as a French journalist in New York, she returned to Paris before traveling to London to cut her second album, Janis, issued in 1980.
Over the following three years she completed three further records, then paused to assemble a book of drawings that later found a publisher. In 1985 she resumed her recording career with Passions, Passons, shifting away from earlier rock textures toward the Middle Eastern sonorities of her childhood and staging a run of concerts at Le Bataclan that featured her own arrangements of material first popularized by Egyptian singer Oum Kalthoum.
During the next several years she published two novels, contributed to a documentary on the Intafada, and appeared in a production of The Threepenny Opera, all while continuing to perform and record original songs. From 1992 onward she concentrated on Oum Kalthoum’s repertoire, releasing an entire album of such interpretations and touring internationally, including a 1994 appearance in Jerusalem. Jardin Andalou, issued in 1996, fused rock elements with Arabic and Andalusian influences; it was followed by the more dance-oriented Digital Sheikha, recorded for Switzerland’s Baraka label. In 1999 she delivered both La Route Nue des Hirondelles and her third novel, Beaucoup Autour de Rien. She adapted the former into a theatrical production that toured for several seasons alongside her ongoing Oum Kalthoum presentations. She returned to the studio for the 2003 release Orients.
A fellow musician soon urged her to try out for Le Petit Conservatoire de Mireille; she abandoned acting and committed fully to music. A circulated demo secured a contract with RCA, which issued Le Balayeur du Rex in 1977, yet the album drew scant attention. After a short period working as a French journalist in New York, she returned to Paris before traveling to London to cut her second album, Janis, issued in 1980.
Over the following three years she completed three further records, then paused to assemble a book of drawings that later found a publisher. In 1985 she resumed her recording career with Passions, Passons, shifting away from earlier rock textures toward the Middle Eastern sonorities of her childhood and staging a run of concerts at Le Bataclan that featured her own arrangements of material first popularized by Egyptian singer Oum Kalthoum.
During the next several years she published two novels, contributed to a documentary on the Intafada, and appeared in a production of The Threepenny Opera, all while continuing to perform and record original songs. From 1992 onward she concentrated on Oum Kalthoum’s repertoire, releasing an entire album of such interpretations and touring internationally, including a 1994 appearance in Jerusalem. Jardin Andalou, issued in 1996, fused rock elements with Arabic and Andalusian influences; it was followed by the more dance-oriented Digital Sheikha, recorded for Switzerland’s Baraka label. In 1999 she delivered both La Route Nue des Hirondelles and her third novel, Beaucoup Autour de Rien. She adapted the former into a theatrical production that toured for several seasons alongside her ongoing Oum Kalthoum presentations. She returned to the studio for the 2003 release Orients.
Albums
The Sheikha Tracks Remastered
2023
Impiria Consequential
2001
Digital Sheikha
1997
Barbarie
1983
Passage d'enfer
1982
Singles
