Hasna el Becharia is a remarkable Gnawa woman musician from Algeria. She is sometimes known as a Gnawa poetess. Her home town, Bechar, is in the desert area of southern Algeria.
To start with Hasna played wedding music of the Arab-Berber style for a period of 30 years. She began to play that music by herself in 1972 and was joined by 3 friends, two of whom, Zorah and Kheira, are still with her. At first Hasna played acoustic guitar using the desert's traditional tunes. Eventually she had to resort to the electric guitar instead so that she could be heard above the noise her vast audience was making while singing along with her! Hasna and her friends became well known in southern Algeria.
A major event took place 4 years later in 1976 - a concert in Bechar organized by the Union of Algerian Women, with the legendary Hasna and her band being guest stars. Like numerous Algerian gnawa musicians, Hasna takes her roots in the popular wedding repertoire. She also plays oud, derbouka, bendir and even banjo (but she used to play gumbri only discreetly behind closed doors in her home).
In January 1999, Hasna arrived in Paris, invited to the « Women of Algeria » festival at the Cabaret Sauvage, just as Souad Massi was. Fascinated by her music, the festival organisers decided to put her on stage every night, although it had planned that she play one evening only. Journalists and producers came to see this incredible woman guitar player from the desert and the French newspaper «Libération » published an article about her. She decided to stay in Paris because the circumstances in Algeria were difficult for her to live under. In August that year Hasna joined the French electronic musician Fred Galliano in a concert at the “Festival de Jazz à Vienne”.
Other highlights of Hasna's career were to star in the “Gnaoua Festival of Essaouira”