Rania Khallaf claps and sways at the Citadel 8 pm Music fills the air. From a band called Sunshine, Latino tunes ripple through the hordes of well-dressed young, studded with foreigners and families. Half an hour on and the numbers have palpably risen. Sunshine gives way to Al-Dor Al-Awwal, the crowd moves from one stage to another and couples are dancing in pairs to Ahmed Omar's guitar. Now there is hardly any space to stand. Unusually for open-air events in Egypt, no security or police can be seen. The weather is perfect. By 9.30, with even less space at the crowd's disposal, there is a palpable mood of anticipation while 's appearance is expected. Eyes flit from one stage to another, and when it turns out she is at the far stage from me and my friend - there is no way you could wade through the sea of people, and if you managed it, though you might be in a better position to appreciate the somewhat limited range of her beautiful voice - certainly, the music is a little too loud for it - you would not be able to see her. She was dressed casually, clasping her guitar, and the audience - many of whom would turn out to know her French- cum-Algerian Arabic lyrics by heart - gasped in unison to her every word. They are delighted to have her in their midst for the first time ever: a considerably laudable feat on the part of the French Cultural Centre (FCC). Until the age of 33, while she worked in town planning in Algiers, Massi had only fantasised about taking up music as a full time career. Then she won the Middle East and North Africa Radio 3 World Music Award. Singer, songwriter, composer: Massi has written film scores and produced much "sacred music" since. "In Algiers in the 1990s, it was not easy for a woman to play music, especially on a Western instrument like the guitar," she said at the FCC press conference. "Just getting to a guitar lesson and back, for a young woman wearing jeans, was no easy task." She had to practise in secret to avoid her father's wrath: while he was out, together with her mother and five siblings, she would have "music sessions", playing records and listening to her brother Hassan play the piano. A year older, Hassan was already a pianist; it was he and other elder brothers who would support her after she joined the band Atakor, establishing a reputation on Algerian television with themes she would go on pursuing: differences between men and women, a woman's place in Arab society and the spectre of religious fanaticism: "Even when I was very young I was aware of women's status in Algeria. I could see that they weren't as valued as men." It was then that, in response to proposals from France - notably the invitation of producer Aziz Smati to attend the Femmes d'Algers festival - she finally moved to Paris in January 1999. She was expecting a big break and she got one, surpassing the expectations of Island Records by selling 100,000 copies of her first album, Raoui, with subsequent releases, including Honeysuckle, consolidating her reputation. "As a young woman, in common with Algerians growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, I was fascinated by Western music, especially rap. Now I am rather more influenced by Arab and African music. It is very hard for an Arab singer to make it in Europe, but I strove to go on singing in Arabic. It was my challenge." The opportunity to sing in Egypt, indeed, had reminded her of the Um- Kulthoum concerts she used to listen to with her mother, and she was "very anxious" about it. More than any other accolade she values her mother's comment: "You are my beloved star." Will she go on living in Paris? God knows, she replies. There are so many countries she has visited that she fell in love with - Massi mentions Spain and Lebanon - she can no longer be sure, she adds.
