Yosefa

Born on 13 January 1971 in Eilat, Israel, Yosefa Dahari absorbed the Arabic sounds of the Middle East and North Africa through her parents, whose origins lay in Yemen and Morocco respectively. Her introduction to singing occurred during military service, most memorably when she performed traditional Arabic folk pieces near the Lebanese border and received applause from across the divide. Such reactions prompted her to deepen her connection to those roots, and once national service ended she turned professional. Whereas many peers drew exclusively from Western sources, she blended contemporary dance elements such as rap and soul with longstanding Middle Eastern vocal and rhythmic traditions. The 1994 release Yosefa, now out of print, and its 1995 successor The Desert Speaks occasionally approached generic territory, yet at their strongest they embodied an authentic fusion of the varied cultural strands that define Israel’s modern musical landscape.