Hajja Hamdaouia, the diva of Moroccan music is no more

At the age of 91, the legendary Moroccan popular music singer, Hajja Hamdaouia, has taken her leave. She died after her health deteriorated and she had to be hospitalised since last Thursday. She had suffered from a malaise that precipitated her admission to intensive care, according to the Moroccan press.

Hajjah Hamdaouia is considered an icon of Aïta and chaabi music, thanks to her texts and songs which made her known in Morocco since the 1950s. Many of her songs have been covered by other artists. In August 2020, Hamdaouia decided to give all her songs to the artist Xena Aouita and announced her retirement from the music scene.

« I have decided to leave the scene. My heritage is now in the good hands of a young woman who is barely 20 years old and who has loved me since she was very young. I decided to offer her my songs to be my successor. She can interpret my songs in English or any other language, » said Hamdaouia, after her participation in a duet with Xena.

A native of the Derb Sultan neighbourhood in Casablanca, Hajjah Hamdaouia, whose career began in the early 1950s, has modernised the Aïta Marsawiya, a committed musical style. The artist was awarded the Order of Commander of the Wissam Alaouite (Moukafaa Al Watania) by King Mohammed VI in 2013.

In a statement to Le Site info, Tarik, Al Hamdaouia’s son, assured that she passed away after a long battle with illness, saying that she will be buried in the Achouhada cemetery, in Casablanca.