She began composing guitar-based songs with a political message when she was a student in the mid-aughts. Shortly thereafter, in 2008, she had already been censored on her country’s radio stations by government decree. She moved to Paris, where she released her debut album, “Kelmti Horra” (2012), mixing her folk origins with rock understood in the natural Maghreb and Middle Eastern way, and an electronic touch inspired by Björk and Massive Attack. The result: a major success that spread unofficial anthems from France to Egypt, turning hers into the voice of the Arab Spring, just as she had already been the voice of Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution. She is a sort of contemporary granddaughter of Cheikha Rimitti, the pioneer who made the Maghreb go electric with messages of liberation and fearless resistance that have led her to tour the world.

In 2015, the performer represented her country at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, as the award was bestowed upon four Tunisian civil society organizations. Two years later came her second album, “Ensen,” lauded by international critics. In it she delves into the creative freedom that electronic music gives her. Produced by Valgeir Sigurðsson (Bjork, Sigur Rós), Emel mixes sounds recorded from traditional Tunisian instruments like the bendir (percussion) and the Arabic oud, along with forceful synthesizer rhythms In 2019, her third LP came out: “Everywhere We Looked Was Burning,” a continuation of the trip-hopper path she set out on in her previous album. Last of all, in October 2020, she came out with the double album “The Tunis Diaries,” recorded in the spring of 2020, steeped through and through with a sense of nostalgia and memories It is an intimate project that captures how she spent much of her time during the lockdown, a work created with her voice and an acoustic guitar alone, divided into two parts, Day and Night: in the first she includes revisited songs of her own, sung in English and Tunisian, plus the novel “Holm,” while in the second you can find versions of songs by artists like Leonard Cohen, David Bowie and Jeff Buckley.