Ramadan Mubarak! Here is a cassette of Qur'an recitation by the Moroccan
reciter Laayoun Al Kouchi (b. Safi, 1967). One of Morocco's top reciters,
Cheikh Laayoun memorized the Qur'an by the age of nine. He participated in
international competitions in the 1980s and 1990s and spent time as an invited
reciter in Belgium and the USA before taking a permanent position at the
Al-Andalus mosque in the Anassi neighborhood, Bernoussi, Casablanca in
2005.
Cheikh Laayoun's
Wikipedia entry
states that he recites in a unique style that blends the Eastern Arabic
(mashriqi) recitation tradition with the Western Arabic/Moroccan
(maghribi) accent. His many recordings available on YouTube seem to
bear this out - his melodies and phrase parsing follow what sounds to my ear
like an eastern model, but his vocal delivery is more relaxed and
open-throated than eastern reciters.
Unlike the recordings on his YouTube,
Instagram, and
Facebook
accounts, which are relatively recent, this recording of Cheikh Laayoune
appears to be from early in his career. His recitation here is at a much
higher pitch than how he currently recites, but I can still hear
the Maghribi accent in his delivery.
Note: Cheikh Laayoune recites in the the
Warsh
recitation tradition, which is typical of North Africa (Mauritania, Morocco,
Algeria, Tunisia, Libya) and parts of West Africa (Mali, Niger, Senegal).
Egypt, the Arab east, and most of the Muslim world typically use the Hafs
recitation tradition. (See
here
for more on the different recitation traditions.)
If you want more of Cheikh Laayoune's recitation, there is a
phone app
that includes the entire Qur'an recited by him.
Al Mouqri' Laayoun Al Kouchi المقرئ العيون الكوشي Qur'an Karim قرآن
كريم Sakhi Disques cassette 474 الساخ ديسك
Nass el Ghiwane - the game changers. Bursting onto the Moroccan musical
scene in 1972 out of the slums of Hay Mohammadi in Casablanca, they changed
what was possible in modern Moroccan music. Drawing musical and lyrical
inspiration from the deep roots of Moroccan art, folk, and religious
traditions, Nass el Ghiwane composed and performed new songs that felt traditionally Moroccan but spoke to modern experiences and discontents. It is said
that hundreds, perhaps thousands of musical groups were launched across North Africa in
their wake by young people who found the Ghiwanian expressive mode potent, timely, and
accessible.
I've shared a bit of Nass el Ghiwane's music on this blog, but not a whole
lot. I have written about them quite a bit here over the years, often when
sharing or discussing the music of other artists. This post is intended as
the first of several posts focusing directly on the group and some of the
many recordings they released on vinyl and tape from 1972 to the
present. This is my attempt to sketch some of the early history of the group leading up to the first recordings of the group for the Polydor label. I'll call the quintet featured on those recordings Nass el Ghiwane 1.0. And I'm delighted to share here my vinyl rip and remaster of their first LP. I think it sounds better than any of the digital versions I've heard streaming around out there on the webs and tubes.
Nass el Ghiwane 1.0: Origins
According to Larbi Batma's memoir Ar-Rahil [1], the initial core of the
group was the trio of Batma, Boujmiî Hgour, and Omar Sayed. The three had
participated first in neighborhood amateur theater groups and later as actors and singers in Tayyeb Saddiki's professional troupe. Filmmaker Ahmed Maanouni (director of
the Nass el Ghiwane documentary film "Trances") says that Saddiki had a grant from a trade
union to produce plays using young actors from the poor neighborhoods of
Casablanca [2]. By the time the young Ghiwanis were working with Saddiki, he
had established a new style of Moroccan theatre that drew themes and
inspiration from old literary and oral sources like melhoun poetry and the
Sufi poetry of Sidi Abderrahmane al Majdoub. This new theatre movement also
drew inspiration from folk performance aesthetics, specifically
the halqa circles that form around street
performers in places like Djemaa el Fna plaza in Marrakech, interactive
circles in which the audience is as much a part of the performance as the
performers. The plays were not, however, simple recreations of archaic or
folk forms, but dynamic vehicles using deeply held cultural resonances to
create new and modern experiences in a new postcolonial era.
Boujmiî Hgour, then Larbi Batma, singing vocal solos in the play "Al Harraz":
Omar Sayed and Boujmiî Hgour singing a duet in the play "Al Harraz":
During their tenure with Saddiki's troupe, Batma and Boujmiî began writing their own original songs and the
trio began performing these as a short opening act before the start of the
plays. Like Saddiki's plays, these songs drew on archaic, folk, and religious
song styles, forms, and lyrics, and wove into them themes that spoke to the
lives of their contemporaries. Adding to this tapestry of sources is the
fact that the group's neighborhood, Hay Mohammadi, was home to migrants from every corner of Morocco.
Omar Sayed has characterized the neighborhood as Morocco in miniature [3].
Thus while he and the other group members from the neighborhood grew up in
close proximity, they were raised with linguistic and musical vernaculars
from very different regions: Batma from Chaouia, Boujmiî from Tata, and Omar
from Aït Baha in the Souss [4].
In addition to their warmup spot at the Theatre Municipale, the trio began
performing their songs in cafes and other venues. Eventually they were able
to record a performance for broadcast on Moroccan TV, where they made quite
a splash, being absolutely different from anything seen before them.
The group's lineup was shifting around in these early days. Allal Yaâla was
known to them from their neighborhood as a top-notch musician and
music teacher with an encyclopedic knowledge of
Moroccan styles as well as a quick learner of songs. Allal accompanied the group on oud for its initial TV appearance, but he did not join
them permanently at that time [5]. The earliest photos of the group show the founding trio along with musician Mahmoud Saadi (also an early
member of Jil Jilala) playing the bouzouki and Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri
playing the sintir (the Gnawa guinbri).
Unlike the rest of the group, Tahiri, whom we've profiled here before, hailed from Marrakech. He did two years
of study at the prestigious Conservatoire National de Musique, de Danse, et
d'Art Dramatique in Rabat, after which he returned to Marrakech and worked
with several local theatre troupes [6].
I believe Tahiri relocated to Casablanca due to his Marrakech theatre work. He
had played the role of Mahmoud in the Wafa troupe's production
of Abdeslam Chraibi's "Al Harraz". That play was later produced in
Casablanca by Tayeb Saddiki (see video embedded above). I read somewhere that
Tahiri helped Saddiki's troupe with the melhun vocal styles
used in the production. It was here that the Ghiwane group got to know Tahiri
and appreciate his talents.
By sometime in 1972, Mahmoud Saadi had left the group [7] and they reached out
to Allal Yaâla to join. The addition of Tahiri and Allal increased the group's
scope exponentially on the strength of the stringed instruments they could
bring to the songs as well as percussion and vocals. Both musicians were
steeped in the melhun tradition and various other styles. It is
this quintet that we hear on the group's first recordings, pictured here on the
back of their first album:
Nass el Ghiwane 1.0 existed from 1971 or '72 to 1973 or early '74. As far as I can tell from the world wide web in 2026, they released five 7-inch singles and one 12-inch LP during 1972 and 1973. Two songs from the 1973 singles also appear on the second Nass el Ghiwane album in 1974. By the time that album was released, Tahiri had left the group and Abderrahmane Paco had joined to begin the brief era of Nass el Ghiwane 2.0.
Here is a detail of the releases by NG 1.0 while they were together:
Some concert recordings of Nass el Ghiwane 1.0 were released commercially in the 1980s. I have not included them in this list, but I am planning to devote a blogpost to them sometime this year.
Disque D'or: A spurious album title, but golden nonetheless
The album cover for the first Nass el Ghiwane LP reads prominently "Disque D'or 1973". In his memoir, Larbi Batma writes that this gold record award was announced by the record company Phillips (I think he means Polydor) but the group never saw or received an actual prize. He eventually asked someone about it and was told that the record company just wrote Gold Record on the album for publicity [8]. Despite this unawarded award, the record will always be gold in my book. It's a collection of groundbreaking, classic songs with inventive arrangements, sung passionately and with an urgency that leaps off the record over 50 years later. Here are a few of my subjective takes and random thoughts:
El Madi Fate (The Past is Gone) - leading off the album with a bold, anti-nostalgic declaration of a new (cultural) moment.
As Siniya (The Tea Tray), the group's first single and probably their most well-loved song, a complaint sung to a tea tray, the tea tray being the physical artifact around which a ritual of sociality and belonging is enacted - the preparing and sharing of tea. A complaint about the state of the singer's tea glass among other glasses on the tray. Language evocative - unspecific about what has brought on this condition, but universally resonant in Morocco by virtue of its imagery. And with a rousing refrain declaring departure and that "bahr al ghiwane ma dkhaltu bil3ani
بَحْرَ الْغِيوَانْ مَا دْخْلْتُ بَلْعَانِي" - the ocean of Ghiwane - I didn't enter it intentionally. The cryptic term "Ghiwane" which of course became synonymous with the group itself - Nass el Ghiwane = People of Ghiwane - something to do with song, something archaic, something that one does not simply walk into by design but that one falls into. The references to trance were here from the very beginning of the group, even before the Gnawi Abderrahmane Paco joined them. (See also the name of the group in English on their first 2 singles: New Dervish.)
Allah ya Moulana - cooling down with a heartfelt supplication to God and the Prophet ﷺ in the form of a legitimate earworm, complete with an unforgettable wordless singalong wo-wo-wo melody before the Dan-Dani part of the song.
Side two expands the discourse to more philosophical and ethical matters, leading off with Ya Bani Al Insane (Oh Children of Man) - my condition, my promise, today pushes me, I want to pose a question and say it in the tongue of Ghiwane, Oh Children of Man, why are we enemies?.
An ecstatic, quick paean to love and beauty in Yamna/Joudi Berdak with terrific long held high vocal notes from Omar while Allal goes wild on the banjo.
Then finishing up with two more philosophical questions: Fin Ghadi Bya Khouya (Where are you taking me, brother) on individual connection and blame in a time of social and cultural rupture - with an eerie ethereal vocal harmony placed a fourth above the main melodic line, and Wach Hna Houma Hna (Are We Still Us?) on the existential effect of greed and inequity on society and humanity as a whole.
I'm so happy to be able to share this good sounding vinyl rip. My copy of the LP is far from the cleanest in the world, but the recent addition of stem splitter capabilities to Logic Pro X allowed me to isolate vocals on one track while the pops and clicks got shunted onto another track, which I could then mute during the a capella passages. TLDR - it sounds really clean where it counts the most. And it sounds better than any streaming digital version I've heard.
I am of course conflicted about the use of AI tools in this work and in general. They are resource-hungry, and as much as we are being told we will not lose jobs, we will definitely lose jobs, which is terrifying in a society where existing rips and tears in our social safety nets are being widened in order to make oligarchs imperial again. I hope my limited use of these tools to restore a work of beauty does not exacerbate the situation. I'm sure a professional could do a better job at this than I have done, but until that happens, please enjoy this new version of this historic LP.
Nass el Ghiwane ناس الغيوان Disque D'or 1973 نال اسطوانة الذهب السنة Polydor 2.944.007 1973
A1 El Madi Fate الماضي فات A2 As Siniya الصّينية A3 Dane Dany (Allah Ya Moulana) أدَانْ دَاني - الله يَا مُولانَا B1 Ya Bani El Insane وايّى يابني الإنسان B2 Yamna جودي برضاك B3 Fin Ghadi Bya Khouya فين غادي بي خويا B4 Wach Hna Houma Hna واش احنا هما احنا
[1] Larbi Batma. Ar-Rahil. This book has not been translated from Arabic, but there
is a monograph in English that examines the work in depth: Lhoussain
Simour's 2016 book
Larbi Batma, Nass el-Ghiwane and Postcolonial Music in Morocco. To date, this is probably the best source in English about Nass el Ghiwane,
but keep your eyes open for the results of research in progress by
Alessandra Ciucci.
[3] Omar Sayed, interviewed in
ناس الغيوان - الجزء الأول
(Nass el Ghiwane - Part 1), Al Jazeera Documentary. Directed by عمر كاملي بن حمو Omar Kamli Benhamou,
2010.
[7] In his memoir (p. 168) Batma refers obliquely to some interpersonal
conflicts stoked by an unnamed person from Marrakech, ostensibly someone from
Jil Jilala or their circle.
Dig it! Here's a delightful cassette from singer and guitarist Haim Bobtol (billed on his Tichkaphone releases as Abitbol). You can read about Botbol's history and musical career in this old post at Jewish Magrib Jukebox. As far as I can tell, Botbol is still alive and nearly 90 years old here in 2026.
The opening tracks on each side of the album are of the fun, participatory chaâbi variety where a short phase is repeated by backup singers (and the audience) in response to the singer, who reels off line after short poetic line to keep the assembly engaged until he lets the violin take over to propel the dancing. The subsequent tracks on each side lean toward the Andalusian/classical end of the chaâbi spectrum in melody and texture.
If you've read my posts, you know I love the sound 1980swedding-type chaâbi groups with their raucous drum kits and strummy rhythm guitars. Botbol's style of orchestral chaâbi heard here emerges from an earlier generation. Many elements are the same: repertoire drawn from various Moroccan genres, violin driving the melody, several other instruments providing melodic and rhythmic support. But the sum of the parts feels different - somehow more urbane and more earthy at the same time.
A contemporary in this era and approach to chaâbi is Abdessadek Chekkara, whom we profiled here last year. Both he and Botbol are children of the 1930s, born into a musical families, raised learning elite traditions (Andalusian, mehlun), but also with interest in the broad swath of Moroccan musical styles. Both began recording in the vinyl era and continued into the cassette era.
You can hear a trace of this history in Botbol's vocal stylings - the vocal mawwal passages in the track "Lataâmal Âchir", where you can hear the ornamentation styles particular to Jewish Moroccan singers of classical genres.
The participatory chaâbi tracks feature some eclectic elements. In addition to darbuka, kamanja, female chorus and clapping, there is some kind of ghaita/oboe-sounding instrument on some of the instrumental breaks. Is it a keyboard? whatever it is, I love it. I'm also crazy about the harpsichord-sounding keyboard instrument - the same instrument can be heard on some Hajja Hamdaouia recordings of the period (late 60s? early 70s?). I wonder if there was a keyboardist in the Tichkaphone house band that added this instrument to the recordings of both artists. Finally, add Botbol's electric guitar deep down in the mix and you have a distinctive, very enjoyable track!
Hope you enjoy! I've got some more Botbol in the stash. But I'm working on a major Nass el Ghiwane post that you may see before I get back to Botbol.
Abitbol أبيطبول Tichkaphone TCK 523 تشكافون A1 Asbar الصبر A2 Lataâmal Âchir لا تعمل عشير B1 Rah Additiou راه الديتو B2 Rassoul Lhoub رسول الحبيب B3 Taârida
Here is an absolutely gorgeous album by Jil Jilala. As I understand it, this album dates from 1984 and is the last of the group's albums made with the participation of Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri, the guinbri player and singer who joined the group in the mid-1970s after leaving Nass el Ghiwane.
As a guinbri player, Tahiri differs from both Paco Abderrahmane (who he replaced in Jil Jilala and who replaced him in Nass el Ghiwane) and from Mustapha Baqbou (who replaced him in Jil Jilala) in that he did not emerge from the Gnawa ritual tradition. Having grown up in Marrakech, however, he was familiar with the sound and melodies of the guinbri. In a 2006 interview, he addresses his relationship to the instrument and to Gnawa music:
Q: Why did you choose this magical Moroccan instrument, the sintir?
A: The sintir existed long before Nass El Ghiwane and Jil Jilala. I saw it in Jamaâ El Fna square. Admittedly, I've been presented as the first Moroccan artist to have used this instrument. In fact, it belonged to a great master of the sintir: the late Layachi Bakbou, who participated with us in the play "El Harraz," performed by the El Wafa troupe. I was happy to learn alongside him, especially since I could create and play pieces outside of the Gnawa tradition.
Indeed, I have always felt Tahiri's playing did not sound rooted in the Gnawa tradition. This is not a criticism - his guinbri melodies are inventive and unbound to traditional role of the instrument, which makes sense in the then-uncharted musical field of Ghiwani song.
I am particularly struck by the album's title track "Daouiwah". The opening guinbri solo passage showcases Tahiri's approach to the instrument - he strums it here like an oud, using pull-offs and tremolos, exposing the melody of the song before the rhythm enters. At that point, there is a glorious, shimmering 3-lute approach - guinbri, gnibri, and buzuq - exposing the lovely, angular melody. Add the soaring group vocals and the drums, and you have something special!
I've shared this video of Jil Jilala lip-syncing "Daouiwah" before, but I'll share it again here 'cos I love everything about it so much:
Enjoy the whole album here. And condolences to supporters of the Moroccan national football team on the AFCON loss this weekend. 💔
Time keeps on slippin' slippin' slippin' into the future... and the cassette era recedes further and further back in the rear view mirror. For our first post of 2026, we're going back to 1994 for some early electrified Gnawa music. And when I say electrified, I mean one dude with a keyboard!
1995 me picked up this tape probably in Marrakech and, played it maybe once or twice, said "meh", and set it down to languish in the Stash until 2026. 1995 me was more interested in either straight-up Gnawa recordings (you know, just the guinbri and qarqabas) or in hipper fusion things like Hassan Hakmoun's first 2 albums (Gift of the Gnawa and Zahar), the Gnawa rock of Houssaine Kili, or the wild Mahmoud Guinia + drum kit tapes (which I now believe NOT to be Mahmoud Guinia, at least on vocals). 1995 me was not interested in a Gnawa group accompanied by a keyboardist playing sax, flute, marimba, organ, and straight-up synth sounds along with a drum kit.
While 2026 me still prefers electric guitars to keyboards in chaâbi ensembles, I have developed occasional warm feelings for the sounds of the North African electric keyboard (especially those of the 1980s Algerian raï variety). And whereas a standard wedding band drum kit was nothing special to 1995 me, 2026 me waxes nostalgic at the sound of a prominent and raucous drum kit, and for the days (nights, really) before production values got so smooth. Its sound brings a time-traveling grin to my face and an old school derdeg to my feet and hips.
This is all a prelude to saying that 2026 me is rather enjoying the "meh" tape that 1995 me dismissively filed away so long ago.
Sure, it's an anonymous studio creation meant to capitalize on the growing popularity of Gnawa music, crediting no particular musicians and using stock images of Gnawa from postcards for the cover. But as I spieled recently, pop textures of yesteryear age differently for different ears. For me, the keyboards here are never awful, sometimes retro-delightful, and the drum kit is always in the pocket, sometimes just grooving steadily with the qarqabas, sometimes pushing things forward with accents, punctuations, or backbeats.
So you may dig this or you may not. For mid-90s Gnawa-and-keyboards cassettes, you may prefer the cassettes released by the duo Saha Koyo, but they don't float my popstalgic boat like this Radio Annajah cassette, and I don't find them interesting as fusion items. But ask me again in a few years - perhaps my ears' viewpont will have changed!
Discographic note: The songs listed on the j-card flap appear in a different order on the cassette. Also, I believe Side 2 is actually the beginning of the album. Side 1 fades in mid-song, and side 2 fades out mid-song. These two songs typically run together in performance, so I have edited them together into one long track. The edit is not seamless - there appears to be some missing music - but the tempo and the key are the same, so the edit is pretty smooth. Side 2 does not fade in but rather starts with a guinbri and keyboard unmetered intro section, so it feels much more like the beginning of an album. So I've tagged track B1 as the first song of the album and the edit of B2-A1 as the second song.
G'nawa ڭناوة Succes 94 مفاجأة Radio Annajah cassette RN 136 راديو النجاح 1994
B1 Taj Lâin A Ya Habib Allah تاج لعناية حبيب الله B2 Nebda Bennbi Wensbeq Allah Feklami نبدا بالنبي ونسبق الله فكلامي A1 Ach Qdaw Ila Berhou Biya آش قضاو إلى برحوا بيا A2 A Moulati Fatma أمولاتي فاطمة Lâafou Ya Moulana العفو يا مولانا A3 Hamouda Baba Hamouda حمودة بابا حمودة
Production and Distribution انتاج و توزيع Radio Annajah راديو النجاح
