Let us introduce you to a band of sisters with the last name Haim. No, not the ones you’re thinking of. Tair, Liron, and Tagel Haim are sisters from southern Israel, and together they form a band called A-WA (Arabic for “Yes,” pronounced AY-wah). “It felt like music chose us,” Tair Haim explains. “We really have so much love to give, and so much good music, and we are all about bringing people together.”
Their musical style is unique — it’s a combination of traditional Yemenite songs, electronic music, and hip-hop. In 2016, their song “Habib Galbi” (“Love Of My Heart”) went viral, becoming the first song in Arabic to reach the top of the Israeli charts. Their debut album, also called Habib Galbi, uses traditional Yemenite folk chants and re-imagines them with electronic beats, pop music, and more. Their music is a powerful mix of modern and traditional, emphasizing their Jewish Arabic roots. And they’re the coolest. Seriously. “Since a very young age, we all discovered the love of music. I am the oldest sister, and I was always dancing and singing around the house. We grew up in a very small desert village in southern Israel called Shaharut. There weren’t many kids around so we were always best friends,” Tair told me. “We were known at school as the musical family from Shaharut.”
Their new album translates to My Home Is In My Head, and it tells the story of their great-grandmother Rachel’s journey from Yemen to Israel. “She used to say, whenever she was asked in Yemen, why are you always traveling from one place to another? Why don’t you stay in one place, and she said, ‘I can’t stay in one place. My home is in my head.’ She was a very legendary character in our family; we heard a lot of stories about her from our grandma, and from our dad,” Tair says. Their great-grandmother came to Israel from Yemen as part of Operation Magic Carpet, in which 49,000 Yemenite Jews were airlifted to Israel between 1949 and 1950. She wouldn’t agree to stay in an arranged marriage, Tair explains, and so she traveled as a single mother. Now the Haim sisters want to tell her story. It’s a “courageous story – traveling from Yemen to Israel, coming to Israel as a refugee, and starting from scratch. And being such a strong woman. We always laugh and say she was a feminist without even knowing what one was,” Tair explains. “We had so many things we already wanted to say, and we felt like we could use her life story and her voice — things she wanted to say, but couldn’t – and kind of blended with our voices. Each song on the album represents a piece of her life.” From: https://www.heyalma.com/a-wa-a-band-of-yemenite-jewish-sisters-want-you-to-feel-at-home/
