Barka Merzaia, the new face of pluralistic and talented Algeria

ALGERIA: Beautiful, intelligent and talented Barka Merzaia, the rising young Algerian star proves to be a true force of nature.

Those who don’t know her will soon find Baraka on their small screens, and Arab News in French went to interview her for her story.

The young artist based in Algiers, originally from the city of Adrar in southern Algeria, collects several strings for her bow. A multi-faceted artist, Merzaia has an angelic voice. She was discovered at the age of 16, and joined a choir where she learned to improve her voice.

A touch of everything and multilingual like the vast majority of youngsters of her generation, the young woman attracts attention across borders: in India, four years ago, when the country celebrated the 150th birthday of musician Gandhi, she won praise from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for her “unforgettable” performance. to “Vaishnava Gana Tu”, a hugely popular Hindu hymn whose “lyrics are imbued with empathy” and which Baraka hopes will be infectious.

Elected Miss Talent 2019, the young desert beauty doubles her modeling contracts. Just like her two sisters Ferdous and Amina, Baraka, who entered the world of photography a few years ago and who aspires to appear in international fashion shows, seems to captivate the cameras.

The young Algerian evokes her inspiration, saying that she “has always been a huge fan of the career of Halima Aden,” who was the first Somali-American model to wear a hijab on the cover of Vogue and the first to wear a burkini in a sports magazine. . It turns out.

Barakat Marzieh, in turn, aims to shatter stereotypes of beauty by remaining honest and faithful to her faith.

A young woman full of ambition, a Spanish language student, also explains that her mother, with whom she is very close, has a Ph. D., which in parallel with her artistic projects motivates her to follow in her footsteps in striving higher. education.

Of a particular beauty that does not necessarily fit the classical criteria of the North African collective imagination, Barka Merzaia embodies, perhaps unconsciously, but with monumental elegance, an Algeria in need of representation.

So attached to her faith, the young woman says she has turned down offers to partner with brands that have asked her to remove her veil for a photo shoot.

“Many consider my hijab to be a fashion accessory, and this is far from the case, and I am convinced that I can carry out my projects without compromising my integrity,” explains the young woman.

African and Algerian

On the Internet, the singer, model and, more recently, an actress, shares with more than half a million subscribers her daily life and artistic projects.

Away from the political and ethnic claims, Baraka’s peculiarity seems to lie in the fact that she fully claims her Algeria, her Africanness, and her faith, which she manages to reconcile. Hence, it proves that these aspects of Algerian identity do not contradict each other.

At a time when young people sometimes tend to admire everything that comes to them from the outside, the young woman shows through her talent and her quiet strength that the Algerian identity, in addition to being pluralistic and rich, “has much to offer and is worth discovering.”

Like many young men his age, Baraka loves to share bits of his daily life, as well as his professional accomplishments, particularly in the fields of modeling, music, and art. His business is successful.

Merzaa says that one day, while visiting her hometown of In Salah, she decided to share moments from her life about her home region in southern Algeria.

“When I posted a video showing how to make kasra, a semolina pancake baked in sand, I was flooded with letters of interest and curiosity from all over the country asking me to share this kind of content. Frequently,” Baraka Mirzaia marvels.

This video, widely transmitted on social networks, in particular by NWE, a media that sheds light on African culture in all its diversity, has contributed to shedding light on an often overlooked aspect of Algerian culture.

The young woman, who currently has more than 515,000 subscribers on Instagram and TikTok, explains that she sees these platforms as a way to introduce people to southern Algeria, which we don’t usually see and, at the same time, goes against the clichés regarding the inhabitants of the Sahara.

“I do not consider myself an influencer, yet I aspire to share the influence of my culture, by sharing with the people who follow me, my faith and my culture, between modernity and tradition.” says Marzia.

Excelling in performance and heading for a future that seems bright, those whose first name evokes divine grace and beneficent influence aspire to a life worthy of their first name.