Einat Betzalel was born into a Jewish Israeli family; Hakim Boukhit was born in France to a Moslem family. They could have succumbed the rivalry of their origins, but instead produced an unlikely album pervaded by an infectious sugary groove and tinted with optimism and spirituality.
Einat’s grooving, crystalline voice seduces with its charm and disarms with its simplicity. She has her own style, a mix of jazz and soul. And Hakim, her accomplished musical accomplice, won’t say anything to the contrary. “When I heard her for the first time, I was amazed,” he says. “She reminds me of jazz improvisers. Her relation to the beat, the rhythm, is simply unique.”
Einat Betzalel grew up on a kibbutz near Zichron Ya’acov and at the age of 18 joined a military band. That experience, she says, “was a great learning experience for me. We were performing almost every day throughout various countries.”
After the army Einat attended the Rimon School of Jazz and Contemporary Music and started to work with top artists in Israel, among them Alon Olearchik, who is best known for being one of the founding members of Kaveret.
Hakim Boukhit hails from a very musical family, which originated in the Algerian city of Oran and then made its home in Perpignan, in the South of France. “My mom, especially, used to play the darbuka,” he says. “I started playing in a band with my family when I was 12.”
When he got older, Hakim studied various subjects but all the while continued to play music. A few years ago, he moved to Switzerland in order to study jazz at Montreux Conservatory, and remained there for four years.
Before meeting Hakim , Einat explored music through her own cultural roots. She started with traditional-ethnic music, passing through funk and soul before finally finding her true musical identity in jazz.
“I have always been attracted to groove,” she says. “But jazz gave me the tools to improvise and express myself.”
It was three years ago, on MySpace, that Hakim discovered Einat among the top friends of Yael Naim, one of the more successful Israeli singers abroad. He gave her music a listen and was soon captivated. “It was really accidental, but I immediately fell in love with her voice,” he says.
After many virtual exchanges of music, lyrics, melodies, Einat and Hakim met. The two also share the same birthday, and it was on one of these days that Einat offered Hakim to come with her to Israel. It took some convincing.
“I answered her: ‘But you know I am a Muslim, I don’t think it’s possible for me to come,’” Hakim says. But Einat didn’t see any barrier. She reiterated her invitation until Hakim relented and bought tickets to Israel.
“I didn’t have any prejudice before coming to Israel. I was just a little worried,” Hakim explains. “I do think that in Europe, we get a limited perspective of the situation. Everything is not just black and white, it is more complex.”
Despite her own initial apprehensions about working with a Muslim, Einat came to realize that Hakim’s R&B was just the thing that was missing. One of their first performances together was in December 2007. Hakim says that he “literally fell on the stage. She was amazing... We are similar in our musical world. We are interested in the same topics, about sharing, accepting, we have one world.”
“One world” is also the title of one of the songs of the album.
“It is important to show that this is possible, that we can share things,” says Einat. “It is really time for both sides to open and broaden their perspectives.”
“Let’s build bridges, not walls,” adds Hakim.
Music samples: www.reverbnation.com/einatandhakim
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