Photography By: Guillaume Cloup & Laurent Gudin

Khalifa

France

Singer and songwriter since 1997 with Positive Radical Sound (PRS), Khalifa believes music can be more than making tunes and performing. Releasing four albums with PRS, two with Sly & Robbie as well as numerous songs featuring Mad Professor, Tiken Jah Fakoly, Sly & Robbie, Taxi Gang, Sugar Minott, Nambo Robinson, Steven Marley Wright and Paul Groucho Smykle, Khalifa is also involved in teaching music in detention centers in France, in refugee camps in Palestine or in youth clubs in Oran, Algeria.

“Music should help educate while exploring the depths of the Soul”. This is what Khalifa has learned to do.

Khalifa gets his energy from the sources of reggae music to take us beyond frontiers as shown in his last single ‘There’s a Light’ which music video was shot in Camden, London, or in his cover of French classic ‘Chanson pour l’auvergnat’ by George Brassens, North African style! For nearly 17 years Khalifa keeps producing music and writing songs, inspired by his travels and by everyday life, and backed by a powerful rhythm. A must-see performance!

For his album, ‘Hard Times for Dreamers’, Khalifa rounded up an international crew, bringing in Mad Professor, Winston Mac Anuff, Nambo Robinson, Sly and Robbie et Steven Marley Wright (I Jah Man) to put together 12 powerful, tight songs. Each tune has its subtlety; the punchy brass section gives way to the strings, and a 50s guitar trill weaves in and out of a raw afro-beat. Robbie Shakespeare’s bassline smoothly glides us from Lagos to the Kingston suburbs, while Khalif’s masterful voice takes the lead.

Hard times for dreamers was the result of trips to Oran, Ramallah, Kingston, Paris and London, and exchanges with Sly & Robbie, Mad Professor, Tiken Jah Fakoly, Taxi Gang, Sugar Minott, Nambo Robinson, Steven Marley Wright and Paul Groucho Smykle.

Official Website: Khalifa.fr