(b Casablanca, c1940). Moroccan singer. She began her career in the tradition of the shīkhāt (women performers of song and dance). In the 1950s she was among the first shīkhāt to appear on the radio when she joined the radio troop of al-Hbïb al-Kedmīr, which included the famous singer Bouchaib al-Bidaoui. Thereafter she performed regularly in cabarets in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. She rose to popularity in the late 1960s through performances in cabarets in Casablanca and Rabat as well as broadcasting and recording. Her major innovation was the use of a large, all-male orchestra to accompany the songs of the ‘āita genre. An ‘āita singer is typically accompanied by one male violinist and a small ensemble of women playing the ta‘rīja (small goblet drum), the bandīr (frame drum) and the nwaqset (finger cymbals). Hamdaouia's orchestra included the ‘ūd (lute), the nay (flute), several kamanja (violins), the tār (tambourine) and the darbukka (goblet drum) and played arrangements by the composer Maati el-Bidaoui. It was provocative for a classical orchestra of this type, with its connotations of sophistication, to be fronted by a shīkha with a bandīr, a virtual icon of low morals. Hamdaouia drew her songs from the compositions of violinist Maréchal Kibbo and from the standard repertory of ‘āita; improvisation of lyrics is valued in this genre and she was noted for the clever way she inserted new texts into existing songs.
A. Benabdeljalil: ‘Al-mūsīcā al-sha‘biyya al-maghribiyya’ [Moroccan popular music], al-Funūn [Rabat], v/1 (1978), 48–71
Trois Cheikhates Mythiques du Maroc: Hajja Hamdaouia– Fatna Bent El Hocine – Sabak Hosni, Barbès Café 4, Night and Day BAC 104 (c1999)
TIMOTHY D. FUSON