Safieddine Mohamed Boutella (Arabic: صفي الدين محمد بوتلة; born 6 January 1950) is an Algerian musician, arranger, composer, and record producer who graduated from Berklee College of Music. He is the father of dancer and actress Sofia Boutella. He is best known for creating with Khaled the album Kutché, his album Mejnoun, arranging Nass el Ghiwane, and many young artists since the nineties. He also composed for Djamel Allam Djawhara (kind of Algerian anthem), more than seventy movie soundtracks, and five musical frescoes.
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Biography
In 1981, back from the United States, he gave several underground concerts in Algeria, developing a music based on compound rhythms and the fusion of North African, Oriental, and Western sounds. In 1986, with Cheb Khaled, he released the album Kutché, which he co-produced with Martin Meissonnier and for which wrote arrangements.
In July 2007, he celebrated thirty years of music: Orient, Khmous Alik, Kotidien...ZARBOT concerts, named after the spinning top. With more than forty musicians on stage, including twenty strings, guests testifying to his collaborations as arranger for Cheb Khaled, Djamel Allam, Abdy, opera singer Fadela Chebab, and the singer Selma Kouiret.
In 2010, he was contacted by the Festival Mawazine in Morocco to revisit the repertoire of the Moroccan group of the 1970s, Nass El Ghiwane. In 2012, he was invited by the Doha Tribeca Film Festival in Qatar to perform with his musicians at the award ceremony for films in competition.
Since the 1980s he has written more than seventy film scores, collaborating in Algerian, French, English, and Italian cinema.
He collaborated with Rachid Bouchareb on music for Little Senegal films, Poussières de vie, Cheb, and Merzak Allouache for Salut Cousin. The music of Christophe Ruggia's film The Gone of Chaâba is one of his contributions. He was the lead actor in Taïeb Louhichi's Layla, My Reason.
Boutella has composed and staged grandiose shows (some of which are the fruit of work with the Tuaregs): Rêve Bleu in 1988, La Source in 2001 before an audience of 90,000 at the Olympic Stadium in Algiers.
Personal life
Safy Boutella is the son of Colonel Mohamed Rabah Boutella (1924–2007), Algerian military attaché in Paris, and the father of dancer and actress Sofia Boutella. She danced for Madonna during the Confessions Tour in 2006 and Sticky & Sweet Tour in 2008, and for Michael Jackson in 2009. She was in the films Kingsman: Secret Service (2015), Star Trek: Beyond (2016), and The Mummy (2017). He is also the father of actor Azad Boutella, who was in Informer (2018), Herrens Vege (2018), The State (2017), and Young Blood (2016).
Discography
Studio albums
Kutché (1988) - with Khaled
Mejnoun (1992)
Zarbot (2007)
Taous Arhab (2018)
Soundtracks
Automne, Octobre à Alger (1994)
Poussières de vie (1995)
Salut Cousin (1994)
Room to Rent (2001)
Little Senegal (2001)
Le pain nu (2004)
Fadhma N'Soumer (2014)
Arrangements and direction
Yabeit album, Amel Wahby (1988)9781843534082
Gouraya album, Djamel Allam (2000)
El Layali album, Nawal Zoghbi (2000)
Galbi album, Abdy [archive] (2000)
Nass el Ghiwane (Festival Mawazine creation) (2012)
Coke Studio Program, arranging maghrebian musical heritage (2018)
Filmography
Film-documentary concepts
2018 : Safy sans filtre, directed by Medhi Hachid (Contrast)
2017 : Pluriel's, Safy Boutella and new Algerian singers, directed by Frédéric Fiol (Allegorie)
Movie soundtrack
2014 Fadhma N'Soumer1. Film de Belkacem Hadjadj.
2013 L'Héroïne. Film de Chérif Aggoune
2012 Margelle. Moyen-métrage de Omar Mouldouira
2010 La cinquième corde [archive]. Film de Selma Bargach
2008 Pas si simple. Film TV de Rachida Krim
2008 Mostefa Benboulaïd (film) de Ahmed Rachedi
2007 Ayrouan. Film de Brahim Tsaki
2007 Il faut sauver Saïd. Film TV de Didier Grousset
2006 Le retour. Série TV 13 épisodes de Dahmane Ouzid
2005 Permis d'aimer. Film TV de Rachida Krim
2004 Le pain nu. Film de Rachid Benhadj
2004 10 millions de centimes. Film de Bachir Derraïs
2001 Little Senegal. Film de Rachid Bouchareb
2001 Room to rent. [archive] Film de Khaled El Hagar