Singer and an activist

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Jamila Al-Yousef is a singer, curator and cultural scientist from Berlin. Born on the day the Berlin wall came down and inspired by her Palestinian father who came to Germany as a refugee in the 70s, she early started creating transcultural projects to share diverse perspectives on the Middle East, North Africa, Feminism and Postcolonial Topics. After many years working as a project director and festival curator (a.o. founding the festival programm ARAB* UNDERGROUND at Fusion Festival; directing the WELCOME BOARD for refugee musicians in Lower Saxony) Jamila decides in 2017 to shift her focus on her international band project »Jamila & The Other Heroes«. In January 2020 the psychdedelic desert funk Band releases their debut album SIT EL KON on SPRINGSTOFF records, funded by Initiative Musik (the German Music Export Office). The Arabic album title means „Grandmother of the Universe“ and deals with the worlds inbetween transcultural identities. It was released shortly before the pandemic started at the sold out YAAM venue in Berlin. Many singles of the album made it into EDITORIAL SPOTIFY PLAYLISTS (Arab Indie, Palestine Sounds, Syria Sounds, Arab Jazz) and the APPLE MUSIC PLAYLIST Mostakella with more than 56.000 Followern. Moreover there were diverse radio plays and reviews scattered allover the globe, such as CLASH Magazine, OZY, VOGUE, COSMO, Schallmagazin, Radio France und Al Araby. After touring the Middle East and North Africa several times (2017 Tunisia, 2019 Jordan, Palestine), the band wasn’t able to pursue their planned shows at Beirut and Beyond Showcase Festival, Festival du Monde Arabe Montreal and the El Wekala booked Tour in Egypt and United Arab Emirates in 2020. Also their Germany Album Release Tour could not take place due to the pandemic. Instead, Jamila used this time for new collaborations: she created a new music duo with Carina Sperk called DJINN POWER; both writing and performing music in the theatre performance GRANDMOTHER OF THE UNIVERSE at Asphalt Festival Düsseldorf; Jamila made an Arab lyrics feature for the upcoming album of electronic live band KOMFORTRAUSCHEN; and worked on her own solo debut as JAMILA AL-YOUSEF with producer Naima Husseini. When Jamila does not work on new music she is active in political education work. She teaches at University Hildesheim and works as a coach, trainer and consultant in the field of Empowerment of BIPOC* artists and Anti-Racist Cultural Work with institutions such as Ministry of Arts Baden-Württemberg and Academy Schloss Solitude.Moreover she was/is member of several jury boards such as Senatsverwaltung Berlin, Karneval der Kulturen, music comission Lower Saxony and till today Martin-Roth-Initiative (by Goethe-Institut and Ifa) to protect artists in danger worldwide. She studied the Masters "Cultural Mediation" and "musik.welt - Cultural Diversity in Music Education" at University of Hildesheim and the Center for Worldmusic.  Before she was studiying Middle Eastern Studies at SOAS and Contemporry Music at LCCM, both in London. During her study time she initiated many cultural projects in UK, Germany, Turkey and Palestine, to critically reflect socio-political topics in artistic formats. 

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Label and Publisher: Rainer.Scheerer@springstoff.de