Abd Al Malik

Abd Al Malik revisits, 20 years on, the landmark album that redefined French rap, GIBRALTAR. Accompanied by musicians and dancers, Abd Al Malik delivers a unique performance with this new show. GIBRALTAR, Identités Réconciliés, brings together visual art, declamatory art (slam, rap and singing), dance and, of course, music.

I was born in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, my parents are from Congo, and I grew up in a council housing estate in Strasbourg. So I am French, Alsatian, with African roots, and Muslim too.

Ultimately, when I released my second solo album, GIBRALTAR, in the summer of 2006, it was the notion of IDENTITY that I aspired to question forcefully. Drawing on musical samples from the world's musical heritage to create a new work means understanding that we are all composite beings made from the very matter of this planet we share.

That is how, through the channels of art and culture, I experience the universal in my own flesh.

To celebrate GIBRALTAR twenty years after its release is to suggest today the importance and urgency of reconciliation: a dialogue of the self with itself, and of the self with others.

ABD AL MALIK