Cities / Canada
Montréal · مونتريال
North African and Levantine artists making work across French, Arabic, and English contexts.
How Montreal Shapes the Music
Montreal is North America’s quiet capital of Arab music, built on the French language and a deep Maghrebi diaspora. The Festival du Monde Arabe has programmed the city since 2000, Zaho carried Algerian pop and R&B into the francophone mainstream from here, and Iraqi-Canadian rapper Narcy built hip-hop’s Arab-diaspora classroom in the city’s universities.
The city’s second lane is experimental. Nadah El Shazly’s avant-garde Arabic song found collaborators in Montreal’s improvised-music scene, and the ecosystem of venues, labels and campuses gives diaspora artists a working middle ground between Paris and New York.
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