The Art of Healing : Yahia’s Journey Through Sound
There are artists who create for beauty, and there are those who create to survive. For Yahia ElKhamlichi, art became the bridge between pain and purpose — a way to breathe through loss and rebuild from silence. From the narrow alleys of Tangier’s old medina to recording studios abroad, his story is one of transformation: turning memories into melodies, grief into growth, and emotion into timeless art.
Photography was Yahia’s first language, his first act of seeing the world with intention. He recalls walking through Tangier’s medina, camera in hand, tracing light along cracked walls, pausing at faces that told stories without words. “I used to copy my favorite photographers,” he says. “I didn’t know what I was doing — I was just chasing light, chasing real moments.” But in those chases, Yahia was unknowingly learning how to feel, how to listen to silence, how to hold stillness like it meant something.
Then came music. In 2013, inspired by his older brother, he started writing raps — raw, unpolished bars that mirrored his early photos: honest, imperfect, real. “Back then, my bars sucked,” he laughs, “I was just rhyming random words for fun.” But the seed was there — the instinct to translate emotion into sound. In 2020, he returned to music with new purpose and recorded his first real song, “3ASA FEAR.” It wasn’t just a track; it was a confession, a moment of clarity. “Photography taught me how to see,” Yahia reflects. “Music taught me how to speak.”
But life, as it often does for artists, shifted in ways he couldn’t predict.
The loss of his father changed everything — both as a person and a creator. “I was making music before he passed,” Yahia says quietly, “but afterward, it became my way to face the pain I couldn’t express.”
What had once been an outlet became a lifeline. He stopped chasing perfection and started chasing truth. “It taught me to stop hiding behind perfection and start being real. Now, every photo, every song carries a piece of that — not in a sad way, but as a reminder of where I come from.”For Yahia, art lives “between pain and growth, between loss and rebirth.” It’s a hauntingly beautiful space — where emotion becomes rhythm and reflection becomes movement.
“It feels like walking through shadows and light at the same time,” he says. “Moments can be still and empty, and then suddenly a rhythm or a line erupts, shifting everything.” In that space, broken pieces begin to make sense. That’s where his music lives — in the tension between stillness and motion.Living abroad expanded Yahia’s lens even further. Distance didn’t dilute his identity — it sharpened it.
“Being away from home made me see things I never noticed before — the streets, the sounds, the small traditions that shaped me,”
he explains. “It also broke down walls inside me and made me dream of things I wasn’t allowed to before.” His music now carries that duality — a collision of worlds. “I mix my roots with new experiences. It’s a bit of home, a bit of freedom, all of me.”
Through it all, Yahia’s vision remains grounded in human emotion — the kind that outlives trends. He doesn’t chase hits or hype; he chases connection. “I hope people feel like they can relate,” he says. “Like they’re not alone.” Every song is a mirror of experience — the quiet grief, the fleeting joy, the inner healing. “If it gives someone comfort, or helps them feel something they didn’t expect — that’s enough for me.”
Through it all, Yahia’s vision remains grounded in human emotion — the kind that outlives trends. He doesn’t chase hits or hype; he chases connection. “I hope people feel like they can relate,” he says. “Like they’re not alone.” Every song is a mirror of experience — the quiet grief, the fleeting joy, the inner healing. “If it gives someone comfort, or helps them feel something they didn’t expect — that’s enough for me.”Yahia’s work reminds us that creativity isn’t about escaping reality — it’s about facing it with open hands.
His art, born from Tangier’s shadows and matured in the stillness of distance, invites us to see beauty not as perfection, but as survival.
Because sometimes, art isn’t just created — it’s inherited from the places that hurt us the most, rebuilt with every note, every frame, every truth we dare to tell.And Yahia ElKhamlichi dares — beautifully.
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