A little taste of Algeria

by Marie Labrecque, Montréal, Quebec

Lynda Thalie describes herself as a “citizen of the world:” she loves to travel and is a nomad at heart. An Algerian-born Canadian, the singer is well established in her new country but still stays true to her roots. She considers her two cultural identities to be a source of inspiration. “It allows me to make choices. You can take the best thing from each culture that you are a part of. From Quebec, I take the sense of understanding and equality between men and women. We are ahead of many places in the world. From Algeria, it’s the sense of family that I’ve retained.”

Quick integration

Escaping the violence that decimated Algeria in the 1990s, Lynda arrived with her family in Canada at the age of 16, as a political refugee. A native French speaker who was already living much like a Westerner, the teenager didn’t have any problem integrating. “When you are young, you are still adaptable. It’s a much bigger [culture] shock for parents. For me, it came naturally. And in Quebec, we are lucky to be surrounded by people from all over the world, and who quickly embrace Quebec culture.” She still had to repeat two years of school, to familiarize herself with the French vocabulary in some subjects: “Algeria had started an Arabization phase and we were taught math and physics in Arabic.” 

Musical diversity  

The singer/songwriter with the sultry voice has just launched her third album, La Rose des sables. Since winning the Ma première Place des Arts award in the vocalist category in 2000, Lynda has won over audiences with a music that blends Middle Eastern beats with Western sounds. “I was the first in Quebec to sing in these kinds of rhythms,” she recounts. Her cultural background leaves a unique mark on her songs. “It gives them another perspective. I have things to tell people here, different cultural experiences to share; I’d like to give them a taste of Algeria.” And audiences, she says, are open to it: “My impression is that people are hungry for this kind of music. They want to travel through music and be transported to another place.”

A love of languages

As a globetrotter who listens to music from “all over the world” herself, Lynda knows the benefit of travelling and discovering new cultures and foreign languages. The artist sings mainly in French, no matter where she performs: from the Maghreb to Latin America, from the Middle East to Rwanda, where she represented Canada during the Quinzaine de la Francophonie in 2005. “Everywhere, people are curious about the French language,” she says. She finds it unfortunate that this language is not always well protected and respected here: “When I can’t be served in French in Montréal, I leave the store. When we have such a beautiful language, we have to proudly defend it.”

However, this did not keep the French-language enthusiast from quickly learning English. She had studied only a smattering of English in Algeria. “In Canada, there are two languages; we obviously need to know both!” She quickly mastered the English language, mostly by having conversations with an Anglophone friend at school and watching TV soap operas with captions for people who are hard of hearing!

Her 11-month-old twins seem to be following in her cosmopolitan footsteps. After learning French, a little Arabic and English will be next in line: “At home, we really speak a bit of everything!” The kids will be multilingual, that’s for sure. “They have no choice because they will be travelling a lot; they’ve already started. Wherever we go, I’ll teach them a bit of the local language. It’s a matter of respect.”

Credits

Credit: Volt-Martin Tremblay