Younes Megri

Younès Mégri is a Moroccan singing artist and actor (born November 15, 1951 in Oujda, Morocco).

Younes Megri started singing and playing guitar at a very young age and came from a family of artists. His father played the lute and practiced painting, his mother sang in a religious music band, his brothers played the guitar and his sister was a singer. In 1960 the family moved to Rabat. He studied music at the Moroccan National Conservatory of Music in Rabat, as well as at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Malesherbe in Paris.

He became part of Les Frères Mégri (the Megri Brothers) singing group, made up of the three brothers, Hassan, Mahmoud and Younès Mégri, and their sister Jalila Mégri. Younès was their youngest member. In 1974, Les Frères Mégri released the album Younes et Mahmoud (Arabic: يونس و محمود مكري ‎) that was a collaboration between the brothers Younès and Mahmoud. The second album, released also the same year was entitled Younes, Hassan, Mahmoud (Arabic: يونس حسن محمود ‎) was a collaboration between all three brothers.

As a solo artist, he had an even bigger career performing throughout the Maghreb countries and in many European capitals, achieving international success particularly in France. His biggest success was the song "Lili Twili" (translation: my night is long), which was sampled by the German band Boney M. in their song Children of "Children of Paradise". He received a Golden Record for this song, and performed at the Olympia in 1985 during his solo career.

During the 1990s, he also began to compose film music for Moroccan and international films, most notably Gabriel Axel's "Leila la pure" and "8MM" for which he worked with Michael Dana as a consultant.

After a brief role in 1980, he had a prosperous film career starting 1990s specially after the Moroccan casting director Ahmed Boulane offered him roles for Moroccan and international films, with Boulane's first feature film, "Ali, Rabia et les autres" in 2000 shooting Younès Mégri to stardom as a leading actor in Moroccan films. Mégri also played in many Moroccan television serials.

Discography

Albums

As Les Frères Mégri

• 1974: Younes et Mahmoud
• 1974: Younes, Hassan, Mahmoud

Solo

Singles

• "Lili Twili"

In popular culture

• His song "Lili Twili" was covered by Boney M. in their song "Children of Paradise"
• The same song was also covered by French singer Maria De Rossi.

External links

• Official website
• Younes Megri at IMDb