Moroccan Pop

run_time

Well-known member
Anyone got a good knowledge of Moroccan pop...had a trip in a friend's car recently and he had some tapes that he'd acquired on at trip to Morocco was amazing mix of the exotic and good old pop. Unfortunately it was all on cassette with notes in Arabic so can't really chase it any further. Hoping someone here might be better versed in the field and point me in the direction of some appropriate material
 

zhao

there are no accidents
a few months ago I ordered the few available Rai comps from Amazon, not entirely satisfied... the 4-CD box Absolute Rai had some good tunes, and all on the pop side (I imagine Algerian or Morrocan top-40 radio to be filled with this type of thing)... but few were red hot, and while the complex poly-rhythms are mindboggling and very impressive, most were not really dj-friendly in terms of mixing (with jungle, dancehall, hiphop, etc.)

surprisingly the Essential Guide to Rai had some gems on it... french and arabic hiphop, a couple of ominous traditional numbers with junglish rhythms... the whole thing somewhat fusion leaning (which to some might be a big no-no).

in my mind I can picture a perfect modern urban Mid-East/Afro/Euro sound... with pop appeal, rich traditional melodies, and wicked beats... just have no idea where to find it, or if it even exists.

so yeah... I'm looking for someone with indepth knowledge to sort me out too...


by the way, here are a few quality URL's Sufi passed my way once:

demna.com
mazikana.com
6arab.com
mazikaty.com
uae4mp3.com
http://www.topbahdja.art.dz/topici.html
 
Last edited:

Ness Rowlah

Norwegian Wood
couldn't find a Moroccan podcast, but there's a Tunisian one that
might be of interest (the stuff I've heard so far is rather laidback, though) -
http://tunizika.blogspot.com - and there's quite a few sidelinks to
investigate on this site.

I guess "Spécial Marrouc", is a special on Moroccan music,
although my French is non-existing. Listening to "Spécial TuniZika - Retro"
and it's quite enjoyable.
 
Last edited:

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I used to hear some amazing stuff when living in N-E Paris, but never found out any key names....it had that pop appeal that Confucius mentioned, but without all those cheesy 80s synths that seem to pop up so often on Khaled tunes etc. Maybe when I'm next in Paris I'll make a more concerted effort to check this out...
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I just got back from Morocco, and heard some amazing North African takes on dancehall, Lex Luger-type hip hop etc, as well as the ubiquitous and brilliant autotuned raï (obviously more Algeria I would've thought, although that in itself is under dispute http://www.france24.com/en/20160907-algeria-morocco-rai-music-unesco-rivalry).

Google/youtube searching in English or French only turns up a host of Cheb/Cheba raï artists, but very little in general on other Moroccan/Algerian musics that aren't using acoustic instruments; as for the rest, I'm struggling to find anything of note on youtube.

Anyone know much about this?
 
Last edited:
Top