Najla Shami

Najla Shami: voice and calimba
Hector Lorenzo: guitar
Marcos Padron: accordion
Rodrigo Suit: percussion
Najla Shami is a singer and songwriter who was born in Compostela. She is the daughter of three cultures: Palestinian, Galician and Argentinian and she grew up between Galicia (Spain) and Kuwait. She became interested in music since her childhood and began studying and singing when she was 9. She also took part in different polyphonic choirs and Galician folk bands. It was then when she composed her first songs. However, it was when she was 17 and learnt to play the guitar that her songs turned into a more personal style and her voice was influenced by different styles such as jazz, funk and world music.
She went on to study modern music and musical education so she could become proficient in vocal technic and its pedagogy. In order to do so she travelled to different countries such as Norway, USA, Jordan, India, England, Portugal and Spain.
Between 2003 and 2011 she colaborated in different works: The past to come (Enterphonics, 2003), Cinnamon Gum (acid-jazz band), Ben Deitei (Ouvirmos, 2010), with the Safari Orquestra; and Haikus (Inquedanzas Sonoras, 2011), with the band Lobal.
She gradually incorporates new influences into her musical language such as Portuguese, Brasilian and African, mixing those, which have a great impact on her music, with her roots and jazz. It is at this point of her career when she colaborates with the multi-instrumentalist Sergio Tannus in the album Son Brasilego (Fol Msica, 2012) and in the recording of the record-book and documentary CoraSons (Kalandraka, Afrontamento, 2013). She also took part in festivals such as Estou L, Festival da Lusofona or Terra da Fraternidade, Homenaxe a Zeca Afonso".
In July she releases the record-book Na lingua que eu falo (Galaxia, 2013), her first work as a solo artist, an in depth look at the poems of Rosala de Castro. 'Na lingua que eu falo' is a selection of ten songs which compiles seven poems by the Galician poetess with original music, two new creations and a revision of the classic Negra Sombra. In this work, the Galician-Palestinian songwriter Najla Shami tries to bring together her origin and her modern influences.