Bio

2019 Nominee for BEST ARTIST in the Songlines Music Awards, and hailed ‘Diva of the Sudanese desert’ (BBC World News), Sudanese singer Amira Kheir has been enchanting audiences around the world with a sound inspired by traditional music from her homeland Sudan and anchored in jazz, soul, rock and desert blues. A unique musical expression that digs deep into the roots of Sudan’s rich musical heritage, Amira Kheir’s artistic journey indulges the listener into Sudan’s distinctive stamp of Saharan melodies, whilst expressing itself through influences of jazz, soul and rock.

Described by Songlines as ‘a tour de force… a striking voice full of subtle power’, ‘a deathless jazz-soul poise to rival Billy Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald’, ‘music that is bold and poetic, beautiful and fearless’, Amira Kheir’s music is a vivid setting through which East Africa’s rich musical heritage comes to life. Within this setting, frenzied, euphoric East African polyrhythms, hypnotic pentatonic scales and ancient Nubian and Niloitic melodies, blend with soulful jazz improvisation in the backdrop of electric desert blues. Amira’s music possesses within it ancient musical traditions, yet is delivered with a contemporary vibrancy reflective of London’s multicultural music scene.

Amira Kheir is a unique artist whose music is the meeting point of rivers creating a new identity. To date, she has released three albums to great critical acclaim ‘View From Somewhere (2011), ‘Alsahraa’ (2014), and ‘Mystic Dance’ (2018), all co-released by her independent label Contro Cultura Music and historic African Music label Sterns Music. Her latest release ‘Mystic Dance’ is a powerful statement reflecting the artist’s identity; “a tour de force that builds and expands on the rich promise of her 2014 release Alsahraa” (Songlines).

Based in London and singing in Arabic, English and Italian, Kheir has performed at some of the world’s biggest festivals and stages, including Womad Charlton Park (UK), Festival Au Desert (Mali), repeated editions of the London Jazz Festival and London African Music Festival, and the London International Festival for Exploratory Music (LIFEM), as well as touring the Netherlands as part of the ‘World Sessions’ Tour by World Connections. She was commissioned to write and perform an improvised live score for Ernst Lubitsch’s seminal 1920s silent film ‘Sumurun’ by the Bird’s Eye View Film Festival two years in a row, and is repeatedly featured on world renowned magazines including Songlines, fRoots, the Evening Standard, as well as Radio France Internationale, the BBC World News, BBC World Service, BBC 3′s “World on 3 with Lopa Kothari”, BBC Arabic and BBC Persia. As a young singer, musician, composer and producer, she has been nominated as ‘Best Artist for the 2019 Songlines Awards’, as well as one of “6 Amazing Jazz Artists from the Middle East and North Africa not to be missed” by Mideast Tunes, and selected as one of “13 African Artists that will mark the next Decade” by Rede Angola.

As a singer and songwriter, Amira Kheir draws from her own multicultural background to create music that explores themes of home, belonging, love, human evolution and transcendence. Her music is a spiritual journey, evocative of Northern Sudan’s desert landscape and celebrative of its ancient culture, but recognising the beauty and joy in connection within humanity all over, and rooted in an compelling call for peace, love and unity.