At nearly 90 years old, the famous Kabyle singer Akli Yahiatene is at the center of a lively controversy in Algeria. The artist denounced the rejection by the National Office (ONDA) of songs contained in an album which he has just finished recording.
The album contains eight songs, four in Kabyle and as many in Arabic, explains the 62-year-old author to the TV channel Echorouk.
But the ONDA did not accept the recording of some of them for, it seems, a question of copyright. “I was told that the commission rejected them, I don’t know why,” he says.
His agent, who intervened in the same media, did not reveal the reasons for the refusal either, contenting himself with recalling the long career of the singer, his patriotism and his revolutionary past. “Nobody recorded an album at 90,” he points out.
The case has given rise to much speculation on social networks. Censorship, plagiarism, misunderstanding?
According to the journalist and former director of Liberté, Hassan Ouali, it would be a case of copyright. ONDA rejected two songs contained in the album because they did not belong to the singer. One would be the work of the late Dahmane El Harrachi and the other would belong to Maghreb heritage.
The singer and radio host, Belaid Tagrawla, very aware of what is happening on the artistic scene, for his part explained that Yahiatene did not appropriate the two songs, but declared them in the name of Dahmane El Harrachi for the first and as North African heritage for the second. The rights will therefore go to the legitimate heirs. “Dda Akli Yahiatene has been misled. All his songs have been accepted by ONDA,” Belaid wrote on social media.
Akli Yahiatene is one of the most prolific authors of Kabyle song. In 62 years of career, he has a rich repertoire of songs in Kabyle and Algerian Arabic, the best known of which is undoubtedly the famous patriotic song “Ya Lmenfi”, covered by several singers including Rachid Taha and Cheb Khaled. Yahiatene is also a mujahid who has known the jails of French colonialism.