Emel Mathlouthi, also known as Emel, is a Tunisian singer, songwriter, composer and guitarist from Tunis, Tunisia. Her music draws on art pop, avant-garde, contemporary folk, electronic and trip hop, and she is associated with Arabic and wider North African and Middle Eastern musical traditions.

She begins singing in childhood and starts performing publicly at the age of eight on a stage in the Ibn Sina district on the outskirts of Tunis, where she lives until the age of 25. She is self-taught and grows up listening to classical music as well as Arabic and Latin American protest music. Her early influences include the Egyptian singer Sheikh Imam, the Lebanese singer Marcel Khalifa, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, with Baez having a particular impact on her approach.

Mathlouthi performs in a rock band while at college and also appears at universities before focusing on guitar as her main instrument. She develops a vocal and musical style that combines lyrical writing with rock, oriental and trip hop elements, while also drawing on sounds from the Maghreb and the Middle East and blending in influences such as Tzigane, flamenco, Celtic, Gnawa and ragga.

She begins writing in Tunisian dialect in 2004 and also composes in standard Arabic and sometimes French. After moving to France, her writing turns towards themes of distance, nostalgia, anger, sadness, love, patriotism, hope, freedom, faith, disillusionment and the fragility of human beings. Her songs are described as narrative pieces with frequent shifts and dense poetic language.

Mathlouthi collaborates with Tricky and with French artists including Charlie Couture, Jean Jacques Milteau and Meï Teï Shô. She is selected for the first edition of the RMC-Doualiya music awards in 2006. She releases music on Little Human.