The exceptional percussionist Karim Ziad is taking the listener on an adventurous journey for his third album under his own name.

His name has been familiar for some time to knowledgeable fans of music. No matter whether the musical jack-of-all-trades Karim Ziad, born in Algeria in 1966, is accompanying Cheb Mami or helping out the WDR Big Band, the Zawinul Syndicate, or his friend Nguyên Lê, his reputation has traveled from Paris to the rest of the world.

The exceptional percussionist Karim Ziad is taking the listener on an adventurous journey for his third album under his own name. The list of musicians with whom Ziad has recorded his new disc, Dawi, reads like a who's who of jazz and world music: Nguyên Lê: guitars; Frank Chastenier: piano; David Aubaile: Rhodes piano; Michel Alibo: electric bass; Karim Nazem: lead rap Linley Marthe: electric bass; Aziz Sahmaoui: percussion/background vocals; Menni Mohamed: percussion/background vocals; Scott Kinsey: synthesizer/piano; and Rani Krija: keur, karkabou, tbel - to name just a few of them.

And so it is a crackling and tension-filled musical mixture that awaits you on this new shiny silver disc: the sounds of the traditional music of North Africa - the Maghreb - flow into a more than simply productive fusion of jazz and electronic sounds.
In the eleven tracks on Dawi you can hear what Ziad means when he says: 'I go my own way when I combine traditional rhythms and patterns from, say, North Africa, the Maghreb, with European and American sounds. I am not exclusively fixated on jazz but want to development an independent, unmistakable sound.'

To achieve that, Karim Ziad has made a long journey. He likes playing the musical tour guide on his jobs, leading his colleagues and listeners through lesser known musical terrain. The percussionist, singer, and gumbri player is an engaged advocate of genre-crossing projects that mix music and rhythms from the many styles of North Africa and the world. Karim Ziad mixes styles but never forgets his musical roots and his own origins; he states, with his usual modesty: 'I am a Berber.'

Track Listing

• Selmani (Part 1)
• Dawi
• Lala Aicha
• Had Zmen
• Houaria
• Jilala
• Mektoub
• Malaika
• Jazzayer
• Selmani (Part 2)
• Hamdouchia

Additional Details

Label: Intuition

Genre: World

Run Time: 51:45 mins

Region: 0

Release Date: 06/06/25

UPC: 750447345522