"When the popular music, oriental version, moves in interlacings funky and jazzy, it ends in the rash of a merry mixture, rich in tones and explosive in tones. The authors of this moving cocktail name SHARKIAT."
Rabah Mézouane

Arabic scented jazz, spice coloured blues : the music created by Fathy Salama, an Egyptian pianist and composer, for his ensemble Sharkiat (Orientals) has unique flavours.
It seduces European or Japanese audiences but also the popular Egyptian audience, which is the most demanding.

Sharkiat never takes it easy. Its improvisations, a feature common to Arabic music and jazz, are built on a deep knowledge of the Arab heritage.
Musicians juggle with "maqam" (the traditionnal rythms and scales of Arabic music) by dusting them and by making them dance. They play with the thousand and one rythms carried by the Nile over the centuries, from deep inside Africa to the Mediterranean coast of Egypt.

Being known in Switzerland and in Germany, where the album "Camel Dance" was classified well in Top-World, the group Sharkiat is, such a volcano, in activity since 1988.

His creator, Fathy Salama, has never hesitated to make the connection between the African oriental, Turkish and black rhythms. With Sharkiat, he worked out an explosive formula which makes the beautiful part in the interbreeding between folklores of the soil and jazz, funk even pop. In the arrival one receives a jubilant music, everything in sharpness, and a style which does not deny for all that its oriental references, in the widest sense of the term.

In phase with its time Sharkiat, who targets a young public, put all the modern cards in his service. Melodies make alternately languishing, captivating, harmonious and obsessive.

In the art and the way (digital) to provoke uncontroled swaying hips, no doubt Sharkiat is brilliant !

The band is based on 7 artists including :
Karima Nayt : voice, dance
Fathy Salama : piano, keyboards, samplers and percussions
Ayman Sedki : douf, djembé, dohoula, drum
Ramadan Mansour : tabla, douf
Ahmed Al Gazar : saggat, dance
Saleh El Artist : accordion
Ahmed Hany : bass

We also add a variable number of artists and guests playing a variety very rich in instruments : qanoun, arghoul, rango, accordion, violin, bass, nay, to mizmar…

Promoters and festivals, please, do not hesitate to contact us for more information about the booking. Generally, in tour the group consists of 7 artists and 1 manager.

Photo : © Guillaume de Rémusat