L’Beel is the project of Barcelona-born Latifa Belkafir, who has been releasing music since 2021. In 2022 she made her live debut at the Barcelona Jamboree and in 2023 she took to the Sónar stage for the first time, presenting a repertoire based on a mix of styles.
Of Moroccan descent, L’Beel (pronounced “Lebél”) brings the Andalusian musical influence of his ancestors to his music, fusing it with trendy urban and pop rhythms. In ‘Lobos’ he sings that he goes “from Morocco to Cairo and from Cairo to Paris.” ‘El arrepentido’ directly dares to use a UK garage beat, although this mix of styles is more noticeable in ‘Castigo’, a brilliant composition that justifies L’Beel’s promise.
It is no mystery that flamenco – or a version of this style – is part of L’Beel’s imagination, for example, in ‘Pena penita pena’, his collaboration with Dellachouen, but sometimes the typical quejío of Andalusian singing simply adds another layer to his productions, as in ‘La inocencia se fue’, which is based on a Caribbean style.
At the intersection of urban pop and flamenco that is present in her music, also present in her EP ‘Mis niñas’, L’Beel has recently published the best song of her still brief career. ‘Cruce de miradas’ is the Song Of The Day.
In ‘Cruce de miradas’ L’Beel gives free rein to her Arabic influences, in a production signed by Lost Twin that mixes today’s modern flamenco-pop, in the style of Rosalía’s ‘El mal querer’, with a majestic string arrangement. The defiant lyrics portray a “cowardly” boy who didn’t value Latifa. “For you I would have pulled out my teeth, with what it would have been, oh look, what a pity,” sings L’Beel, while the composition – with its melancholic background – doesn’t make her sound dejected at all, but empowered.
