Chaabi Marrakchi with drum kit

Moroccan chaabi music sounds great with a drum kit. Hi-hat gives you the bright jingle of a tar tambourine, a nice loose snare drum gives you the buzz of the bendir, and tom and bass drum give you a nice variety of low tones for the all-important dummmm.

Here's a nice old school chaabi tape with some in-the-pocket drum kit playing. I don't know who the performers are, but the tape is from the Sawt el Mounadi label out of Marrakech, so you know it's gonna be good like this and this!

Chaabi is a pretty wide genre. My fave chaabi keeps it close to rural forms and textures, and that's what you get here - one viola, heavy on the percussion (drum kit and darbuka), lots of call & response singing, one male lead singer and two or three shikhat-styled backup singer. Track 3 mixes it up a bit with a naqqus clanging out a Berber rhythm. Song titles are best-guess cribs from the lyrics.

1) Khelli li ya Lmwima

2) Basha Hammou
3) Hmam Cherradi
4) Mchite Njibou - Galouli Rkeb Sfina
5) Track 5

Enjoy it here.