Another Rouicha banger for your digital cassette rack. I obtained this tape recently. One of my favorite Rouicha tapes is TCK819 (now reupped in FLAC!), so I wondered whether TCK820, whose j-card features the same photo and yellow color scheme, might come from the same session and might be as jamming or be in a similar vein.
I've been trying to get my mind around the Rouicha discography for a while. He has released so many recordings over the years, the largest chunk being the cassettes on Tichkaphone. Between Discogs, various other online sources, and what I have on hand, I've identified almost 80 individual cassettes released on Tichkaphone, dating I would guess from the early 1980s to the mid-2000s. Like most Moroccan tapes, none of them list a release date or copyright date. One can assume that the catalog number listed on the cassette j-card indicates the sequence in which they were released. That may be so, but it's not clear whether the music contained on those cassettes was newly recorded at the time of release or had been sitting in the can for some time. As I related in my first Rouicha post in 2011, I visited the Comptoir Marocain de Distribution de Disques in Casablanca, which also served at that time as the headquarters of Tichkaphone. This would have been in around 2001. I was told that they had around 30 albums worth of Rouicha recordings that had not yet been released. It would sure be nice to know when the various songs and albums were recorded and released.
One think I noticed while compiling my list of Tichkaphone cassettes is that they appear to be released in groups of 2, sometimes 4 consecutive catalog numbers. In most of these cases, one release would feature songs in the Tamazight language while its companion release would be in Moroccan Arabic darija. Doubling up the production one each release would seem to maximize the appeal to the different linguistic audiences.
Back to the tape at at hand - it is the Tamazight companion to the Arabic release TCK819. It is excellent, but it does not feel or sound like the same session, despite the consecutive catalog numbers. Where TCK819 has a warm, dynamic sound, this one is thin, sounding almost like an AM radio broadcast compared to an FM broadcast. With the miracle of modern music apps, I was able to warm up and fill out the sound to give the lotar more of the round, low-end sound we know and love, and to give the bendir more of that good boom and buzz. I think it turned out alright and I don't think these songs are online anywhere else. Enjoy!
Here's a nice old-school Gnawa cassette from Mâalem Mohamed Daoui. During my research days (late 1990s - early 2000s), Daoui was the most well known Gnawa mâalem from Meknes. I believe he was the primary interlocutor for the German researcher Frank Welte, whose Der Gnawa-Kult: Trancespiele, Geisterbeschwörung und Besessenheit in Marokko (1990) was one of the first books on Gnawa ritual and repertoire.
The cassette contains 3 tracks - the first is a 25-minute non-stop suite of songs from various sections of the Gnawa lila ceremony (black, blue, and red songs). This track crosses sides 1 and 2 of the cassette, but I was able to edit them together relatively seamlessly.
The track that destroyed me was the second track. I made the mistake of transferring this tape when I was trying to do work for my day job. "Moulay Abdellah Ben Lhoucine" came out of the speakers and within about a minute my hair was down and I was stamping the floor with my bare feet and banging my hands on my desk/workstation. (Good thing I am working remotely these days...) The singing unfolds at its own pace, going on as long as it needs to, to give a listener (trancer) the lines of text that invoke the ambience of wali (saint), while the guinbri marks time, provocatively, underneath, and the choral responders keep the energy high and provacative. On the ritual floor, singing would continue until the mâalem judges that trancers are competently riding the groove and are ready to interact directly with the guinbi. His manipulation of riffs responds to (or provokes) the movements of whatever trancing body is directly in front of him, moving in dialogue or in concert with his guinbri. In this state of heightened musical awareness, trancers are keenly aware of the slightest variations of phrase, accent, and volume level. The job of the mâalem is to give the trancer the musical support to express in movement whatever needs to expressed. This track, better than most Gnawa tracks you will hear, gives a sense of how that conversation unfolds - though of course you are only hearing one side of it.
More vintage 1993 music this week, but from the eastern edge of Morocco rather than the west. This is a swell rai cassette from Al Ikhwane Talbi, aka Les Frères Talbi, that is, the Brothers Talbi (literally) or better the Siblings Talbi or the Family Talbi (idiomatically), specifically Abdelkader and Sara.
1993 was a big time for rai music internationally. Moroccan artists had some national successes in the rai style, especially those from the northwestern cities of Berkane and Oujda. Those cities share regional musical styles similar to those of northwestern Algeria like Sidi Bel Abbès and Oran, the birthplaceof rai. The Family Talbi hail from Berkane, and they had a breakout hit with the title track of this album, the catchy "Wallah Ma Qaddit"
According to a 2007 interview with Abdelkader [1], the Talbi family group went to France after their initial Moroccan successes to try their luck there. After some time in France, they returned to Morocco. Rai had declined in popularity at that point, so Abdelkader had the idea to work on new music based on the reggada folkloric style he grew up with in Berkane. He adopted the stage name Talbi One, and appears to have had a successful career as a pop-reggada artist - you can find Talbi One's music on all of the streaming platforms. Here's a 2019 track from him - it's got a great sound, and 19 million views to boot!:
Back to today's cassette: The Discogs entry for the album notes that arrangements were done by one Mustapha Asker, who appears to have worked with many great Algerian rai artists (Hasni, Nasro, Fadela...). However, I don't see Asker's name anywhere on the cassette shell or j-card. Whoever did the arrangements, they are nice. The bass player in me is delighted to hear some actual bass guitar rather than a synth bass here:
Abdelkader & Sara - Al Ikhwane Talbi عبدالقادر و صارة - الاخوان الطلبي Wallah Ma Qaddit والله ما قديت Dalaïphone cassette 5 ضالعيفون
A1 Wallah Ma Qaddit والله ما قديت A2 Leila ليلى A3 Lbareh Jani البرح جاني B1 Sidi Lhouari سيدي الهواري B2 Toulmonde Iparti تولومند إبارتي B3 Gouloulou Iwelli قولولو يولى
Here's new digitization of one of my favorite Gnawa cassettes. I shared a version of this back in 2011. I recently obtained a new copy of the tape and a new cassette deck too, so I thought I'd try to improve the sound compared to the earlier version.
This is an album by Paco Abderrahmane (of Nass el Ghiwane, as the j-card points out). It features 4 songs from the Gnawa repertoire. See my original post to hear me sing the praises of the instrumentation and ensemble.
A couple of things strike me upon listening to this album again.
1) Paco's singing. It's completely unrestrained and I love it - he reaches for notes and doesn't always hit them, but I'll take his conviction and energy on every failed attempt over a smooth restrained performance any day of the week.
2) The swing of the guinbri. The way Paco's guinbri lines sit on the beat FEELS different from what I hear from players of the Marrakech school (Boussou, Baqbou, Sam, Baska, et al. ), but I find a similarity with the feel of Mahmoud Guinia's playing - so maybe it's an Essaouira thing. Like maybe they're playing more on top of the beat where the Marrakech players play a little behind it. I may be completely wrong...
I may also have been wrong to try to remix this cassette. The tracks on side A were recorded or mastered very hot, and the vocals max out in the refrains - even when I split the stems and tried to work on the vocal sound there was not much I could do for the distorted passages. I tried to give some more definition to the guinbri and the tbel barrel drum, but it was a challenge since they exist in a similar frequency range. (I think that's one reason those instruments are not played together very often.)
Anyway, I'm tired of tweaking and re-tweaking the eq, imaging, and other settings. I'm an amateur engineer, so this has been, shall we say, a "learning opportunity" for me. I'm happy with some of the results, and meh with other parts of it. So what I'll do is share my remix as well as a raw rip of the cassette (which is at least an improvement over my 2011 rip). And the music is still fantastic, whichever version you may prefer.
Raw cassette rip of track 1 (below) for comparison with remix version (above in YouTube clip), if you're interested in that kind of thing:
Best of luck to your teams of choice in the World Cup, or boycott the whole damn thing if you are so inclined.
Thayyer A Moul Al Hal Mâ تحير امول الحال مع Paco Abderrahmane باكو عبد الرحمن (Nass el Ghiwane ناس لاغيوان ) Edition Sonya Disque cassette ESD 322 سونيا ديسك 1993 + Moroccan Tape Stash Remix 2026
It's about time we got around to posting about La Tabaamrant! Fatima Tabaamrant (b. 1962) is a powerhouse singer, songwriter, and activist for Amazigh and women's rights. In addition to being a pivotal figure in Soussi music, she served as a representative in the Moroccan parliament from 2011-2016, where she became the first person to ever pose a question in the Amazigh language.
After a troubled childhood and early marriage, Tabaamrant turned to poetry and music as a mode of expression. (Her early life is dramatized in the 1994 film Tihiya, in which she stars.) She spent time working in the troupes of several different rwais (Rais Jami’ Al-Hamidi, Said Ashtouk, Moulay Mohamed Belfaqih, and Mohamed Demsiri) before ultimately striking out on her own in the early 1990s. She was not the first female artist to lead her own troupe in the field of Soussi amarg poetry and song: Rqiya Demsiriya and Fatima Tihihit were two notable predecessors. Tabaamrant, however, distinguished herself by not only singing and leading her own troupe but also composing her own poetry.
Her work has addressed many themes and issues over the years, primarily connected to and in support of Amazigh identity. These include: marginalization, Amazigh culture, land, language and traditions, women's rights, education and parenting, rural vs urban life, history and religion, love and marriage and contemporary topical issues. (She released a song in 1998 mourning Kabyle singer/songwriter Matoub Lounes, who was assassinated in Algeria that year.)
I picked up this cassette in 2012, I believe in Rabat. (Tabaamrant's YouTube channel dates it to 2000.) I don't speak Tachelhit, so I don't know what these songs are about. The main musical style here is a sort of tagroupit augmented with ahwach sounds. On first listen, I thought it was the typical tagroupit electric guitar plus banjo or bouzouki. On second listen, I think it's actually 2 electric guitars: one plucky twangy one and a second warm/fluid one. Additionally, all tracks feature drum accents and punctuations typical of ahwach performance, and the final track adds flutes and clapping to the mix for a big ahwach finale. For fans of quintuple meter (like me), the title track (Track 2) is 14 and a half minutes of fivey goodness!
Fatima Tabaamrant continues to produce new music consistently, incorporating different musical configurations as times change, but always anchored in her poetry and vocal delivery. Follow her on Instagram and/or Facebook, and subscribe to her YouTube channel, where she dropped this new track AN HOUR AGO:
Hawamich. "فاطمة تبعمرانت.. من طفولة قاسية إلى صوت للهوية الأمازيغية
[Fatima Tabaamarant.. From a cruel childhood to a voice for Amazigh
identity]". 2025-09-22. https://hawamich.info/10504/
Talmenssour, Abdelâali. "Rraysa Fatima Tabaâmrant: Figure emblématique de la chanson amazighe traditionnelle du Sud marocain", Moenia, 20 (2014), 215-230. https://hispadoc.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=7541628
This tape comes to us courtesy of Peter at the still active, still great มนต์รักเพลงไทย blog. The group is called Toudadine. I gather that the word toudadine is the female plural in Tachelhit for the Barbary sheep (ewes). The male plural for these sheep (rams) is oudaden, which is of course the name of a renowned Soussi group that originated the tagroupit style in the late 1970s/early 1980s.
We posted about Oudaden and tagroupithere back in 2015. Briefly, tagroupit originated in the 1980s as a sort of return to traditional Soussi rhythms and melodies as well as love songs. It was seen as a "return" in light of the 1970s innovations of the earlier, more eclectic and political tazenzart style that originated with the group Izenzaren. This 1980s return to traditional melodies by Soussi artists reminds me of the rise of new chaabi groups in 1980s Casablanca like Noujoum Bourgogne and Toulati el Farah who were also "returning" to traditional sources and lyrical themes in distinction to the 1970s proliferation of eclectic and political groups like Nass el Ghiwane.
This cassette by Toudadine is in a sort of pop-tagroupit style. It features the typical electric guitar and banjo, but 3 of the 4 tracks also feature a keyboard, and the rhythm sounds like programmed beats throughout. The group is fronted by what sounds like 2 female singers singing in unison, with a group of men as choral responders. The j-card flap reads:
أغاني متنوعة - كلمات وتلحين الحاج الحسين أمنتاك Various Songs – Lyrics and Composition by Lhaj Lhoucine Amentag
Lhoucine Amentag (not to be confused with Hmad Amentag) was a well-known singer and composer in the rwayes/amarg tradition. My ear thinks that the first song on this Toudadine tape may not be one of Amentag's: it seems to have more of a pop structure than the other 3 songs, and the lyrics keep coming back to the word "Toudadine", so I wonder if it might be an original song of the Toudadine group.
I didn't find any information about the group online. There are several video clips of a Toudadine group uploaded by Production Disco, but they are clearly a different group - the female vocals are in a different register, it seems about 20 years removed from the group in our cassette, and the songs are very poppy, despite the traditional banjo/guitar accompaniment. (The commenters on the video clips of this group are 50% complaints about their clothes and 50% defending them for having nice voices, despite their terrible clothes. E.g., here.)
Google identified one of the songs on this cassette as "Ahbib Nyan Zound Lkhatam", credited to a "Toudadine Amazigh". Perhaps LVEM rebranded the recordings with this name to avoid confusion with the other fashion-challenged Toudadine group 😅.
Speaking of Rais Lhoucine Amentag, you can find a swell cassette of his over at Moroccan Tapes and another one at TRAD & FOLK MUSIC ON 33RPM & TAPES. I used one of the tracks from the Moroccan Tapes cassette in a mix I recently produced for Radio Is A Foreign Country called "Buzz, Rattle & Scratch: Grainy Timbres of Moroccan Music". Check that out HERE - it's a buzzy, rattling, scratchy good time!
Toudadine تودادين La Voix El Maarif cassette 461 صَوت لامعَارف
It's 2026 and the heyday of the music blog recedes into the rearview mirror of our music consumption patterns along with the era of the cassette tape itself. However, there's still plenty of North African musical goodness being shared online via the form of the anachronistic blog and its various successors.
Here's some recent shares that might pique your interest:
GET THESE BEFORE THEY DISAPPEAR - THE BIG 4 MOROCCAN TRANCE TRADITIONS AT HIVE MIND
Marc at Hive Mind has been sharing some great cassette audio at "Name Your Own Price" on his Bandcamp page. These generally disappear after 1 month, but he's currently made all four them available again for a limited time. So get over there and pick up some choice Hamadcha, Gnawa, Jilala, and Aissaoua sounds. (And chip in a few dirhams for the good causes he supports if you're able to do so.)
(And most of Marc's shares are still available at his old Snap, Crackle & Pop blog.)
SWEET ANADALUSIAN SOUNDS FROM CONSTANTINE AT MUSIC REPUBLIC
Reda at K7MATIC continues to share loads of Algerian cassette audio, primarily but not exclusively rai music, this unusual cassette caught my ear recently - stripped down rai from singer Cheikha Houaria, but replacing the typical gasba flute accompaniment with a ghaita oboe provided by an Aissawa ensemble.
KHADIJA ATLAS ANTHOLOGY AT ARAB TUNES
Lazyproduction continues to compile anthologies and mixtapes from across the Arab (and Amazigh) music world at the Arab Tunes blog. A recent highlight is a compilation of the Zayane singer Khadija Atlas, featuring recordings under her name as well as her appearances on recordings of other artists such as Rouicha, Abdelaziz Ahouzar, and Mustapha Oumguil.
KHADIJA EL BIDAWIYA AT WALLAHI LE ZEIN!
A welcome recent development is Matthew's return to posting at Wallahi Le Zein! He recently reupped a compilation of the late âita marsaouia singer Khadija el Bidaouia, and the post includes excerpts from a 2011 interview he did with her.
NORTH AFRICAN VINYL PROGRAMS AT BODEGA POP
No, not the old Bodega Pop blog, but the Bodega Pop radio program at WFMU's Give The Drummer Radio stream every Wednesday from 7-10 PM Eastern Time. Gary continues to confound expectations with his broad knowledge and musical omnivorosity for 3 hours every week. These programs live forever on the WFMU website, so you can enjoy them anytime you like. Many of his 2026 shows are devoted to vinyl from specific countries. In the North African vein, you can listen to entire programs devoted to music on vinyl from Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, and most recently Tunisia.
Lastly, there are some great North African mixes among the many streamable mixes at Radio Is A Foreign Country. Most recent North African offering was a great audio montage of recordings from Radio Mauritanie put together by Matthew Lavoie of Wallahi Le Zein! Keep an eye on Radio Is A Foreign Country for a Moroccan mix by yours truly, dropping very soon! 😉
It's been a minute since we posted any ahwach - the communal song and dance performance tradition from Tachelhit-speaking regions of Morocco. Ahwach can take on very different forms from place to place or from occasion to occasion. Today's cassette presents an ahwach recording by artists from Tafraoute, led by the singer Othmane Azoulid. We actually posted a tape (now re-upped in FLAC) featuring Azoulid back in 2013. That tape featured an all-male ensemble. Today's tape is an ahwachn'tferkhine - a type of ahwach that features a seated male drum group accompanying a group of female singers. (The work tfrkhine means "young girls" in Tachelhit.) There are quite a few videos on YouTube of ahwach n'tferkine. In some varieties, women's heads are adorned by ornate headdresses. In others, their heads are completely covered by individual white sheets. And in others, as pictured on this cassette's j-card, the women stand shoulder to shoulder in a line and a single long cloth covers all of their heads.
This cassette contains a studio recording of ahwach songs, and the audio quality is very good. Particularly nice is the stereo separation between the different bendir frame drums, which take turns providing rhythmic punctuations. (Actually, on second listen, I think this is just a single bendir, just being panned left, right, or center in the mix to liven up the mix.) And the âwad flutes coming in at the end of some tracks are the icing on top of a lovely cake of naqqus, clapping, bendirs, and zgharits (ululations).
Ahouache N'tfrkhine أحواش نتفرخين B'riasat Lfnane Azoulid برئاسة: الفنان أزوليض [Directed by The Artist Azoulid] (Othmane Azolid) Box Music cassette 2011
Here's another cassette of amarg souss from Raiss Hmad Amentague. Unlike the cassette we shared last week, this one does not sound like it has been sourced from a vinyl recording.
From what I could gather from online sources, Raiss Hmad Amentague excelled in his adherence to poetic meter, and love poetry was his specialty. However, like other rwayes, his themes also ran to the social and topical. "Qsidat L'Essence" (The Gasoline Poem) would appear to be an example of this. I don't understand Tachelhit, but I did recognize a bunch of automobile-related words in the song that are also found in darija (Moroccan Arabic), which anyway mainly came from French. Then again, there are plenty of songs around the world where cars and driving are metaphors for something else, so this could be a love poem after all...
If you aren't already following Hive Mind Records, clicky over to Bandcamp, Instagram, or Facebook and get on that list. In addition to fantastic new music releases, Marc has been doing limited releases of some great audio from vintage Moroccan cassettes.
Out today (and for one month only) is this killer album from Maalem Abderrazak al Moustakim, who I believe is from Rabat or thereabouts. The album includes an unhurried 17-minute suite of songs related to Sidi Mimoun L-Gnawi. The sequence follows the Rabat tradition, leading from L-Gnawi eventually into Mberkiriya and Fofo Denba, but with some additional melodies along the way. It's wonderful stuff.
Make sure you get it quick - the public link will disappear after one month. Pay what you like - the proceeds always go to good and timely causes. And get on the mailing list so you find out when he offers something old and new!
Here's a nice collection of sides from the rrbab player, singer, and composer Raiss Hmad Amentague (1927-2015). Amentag learned the craft of the Soussi rwais in the traditional way - backing up masters as they traveled from town to town performing. The most comprehensive biographical note I found on Amentag is in this post on the YouTube channel of Amarg Amazigh.
Amentag's recording career stretches back to shellac records beginning in 1953. From the sound of it, this cassette appears to be a compilation of recordings originally issued on vinyl.
Amentag was feted by artists, scholars, and an appreciative live audience in an episode of the Moroccan TV program Masar in 2010. He also performed a song with support from Rais Aboubker:
And here is a fantastic live performance from 1996 highlighting Amentag's rrbab and singing:
This post looks at the short but seminal period of Nass el Ghiwane 2.0, from the time Abderrahmane Paco replaces Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri until the untimely death of Boujemiî Hgour in October 1974.
Nass el Ghiwane 2.0: Exit Tahiri, Enter Paco
At some point in 1973 or early '74, Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri left Nass el Ghiwane. Larbi Batma wrote in his memoir ar-Rahil [1] that Tahiri's leaving was a function of interpersonal matters related to an unnamed person from Marrakech, not a function of any musical or creative differences.
Although the narrative of Nass el Ghiwane's formative days centers on the creative duo of Boujemiî and Batma, Tahiri's creative contribution to NG 1.0 should not be discounted. In addition to being musically proficient on various instruments and fluent in various styles, he was absolutely committed to the project of creating a new type of modern Moroccan song anchored in traditional forms. Batma notes that Tahiri contributed to the group's songwriting in those early days. Memorably, his solo guinbri opens the Disque D'or album's opening track "El Madi Fate (The Past is Gone)", and he sings the vocal lead in the song's opening verses.
Despite Tahiri's early departure from the group, the Ghiwanis would find a more than competent replacement in Abderrahmane Kirouch "Paco". Paco would come to be one of the primary creative drivers of the group from that time forward, adding substantially to the group's already rich poetic and musical tapestry.
Like Tahiri, Paco was not native to Casablanca. Tahiri came from Marrakech and Paco came from Essaouira. Also, like Tahiri and the other Ghiwanis, Paco had some experience in unconventional theatre, but of a very different type. In the summer of 1969, the experimental American theatre troupe The Living Theatre took up residence in Essaouira, which was at that time a renowned destination for hippie and other anti-establishment seekers. Jimi Hendrix visited Essaouira that summer, and Paco claims to have performed a lila ceremony that Hendrix attended there [2]. Critically for his artistic itinerary, Paco participated with The Living Theatre in a local production in Essaouira wherein he played the guinbri and sang wordless melodies [3]. This is likely the origin of the "sonorous Gnaoua chant from Morocco" that runs throughout The Living Theatre's production "Seven Meditations on Political Sado-Masochism".
Paco's experience with Living Theatre and their deconstruction of foregoing theatrical conventions must have resonated with the other Ghiwanis' experience with Tayeb Saddiki's troupe - i.e., openness to the idea that music and performance could be deployed in the service of transformative experiences beyond the confines of the proscenium stage. And of course Paco also had practical experience of these transformative possibilities through Gnawa musical-ritual practice.
Before Paco joined Nass el Ghiwane, however, he spent time as a member of Morocco's other top group working in the new style. The Marrakech-based group Jil Jilala wanted to add a guinbri player to their ranks. Members went looking for Baqbou in Marrakech but were told he had gone to Essaouira. They set off for Essaouira and were unable to find Baqbou, but someone pointed them in the direction of Paco, who liked the idea and joined the group.
From what I can surmise from the online resources, Paco is featured on two pairs of 7-inch singles released by Jil Jilala, both containing the same songs in different versions, for the Atlassiphone and Casaphone labels. YouTube user Ismael Abo Salma (well worth following) has put together an excellent chronological playlist of Jil Jilala's recordings, and he dates these singles to 1972, making them the earliest of the group's recordings. He lists the Atlassiphone singles as being the initial recordings, and the Casaphone singles being subsequent re-recordings of the same songs:
Klam Lmrassah الكلام المرصع / Ha Lâar A Bouya ها العار أبويا (Atlassiphone ATL 556) (Discogs)
Jilala جيلالة (Casaphone CSP 5084) (Discogs , YouTube - I think this is the Casaphone recording - you can clearly hear Paco's solo voice and guinbri at the beginning of this track, and the image is from the back of the Casaphone sleeve)
Klam Lmrassah الكلام المرصع / Ha Lâar A Bouya ها العار أبويا (Casaphone ???) (YouTube)
Despite Paco's participation in these early successes of the group, it was apparently not an ideal musical fit as far as Paco was concerned. The story goes that he was in a recording session with the group and got into an argument about the rhythm of the song being recorded. Frustrated, he walked out and never returned [4]. Fortuitously, this coincided with Tahiri's departure from Nass el Ghiwane, and soon thereafter Paco joined the Ghiwanis.
Nass el Ghiwane 2.0: Recordings - Falastiniyat
The recorded output of Nass el Ghiwane 2.0 while they were together consists of 3 singles comprising a total of 4 songs, 3 of which were included on their second LP. Each of the three singles features the word "فلسطينيات (Falastiniyat)" in the top right of the sleeve. I don't detect any explicit references to Palestine in the lyrics of these songs, so I'm not sure what is the significance of the moniker "Falastiniyat" here.
Along with his powerful singing voice and muscular guinbri playing,
Paco brought to the Ghiwane his experiences with both the ritualistic performance art theater aesthetic of the Living Theatre and the
ritual mise-en-scène of the Gnawa lila ceremony, where music is
the element that structures time. Adding this powerful force brought the group's already rich compositional and performance mix to a new level, making good on the idea of New
Dervich.
Although the recorded output of this lineup is small, it lays the course of the group for the next 20 years with the addition of the Gnawa element. Specifically here, the songs "Lahmami" and "Ghir Khoudouni" incorporate melodies, structures, and symbolism from the Gnawa ritual repertoire.
"Lahmami", which kicks off the 2nd LP, contains a whole opening section that the group seems to have dropped in future re-recordings and performances of the song ("La la la la lal ya oueddi lal"). The familiar, energetic Lahmami section of the track takes much of its melody and structure from the Gnawa song "Baba Laghami" [5]. Nass el Ghiwane transform it from a sort of saint's invocation song to something secular and quotidian, with lyrics evoking rural beauty as well as the imperative of departure and the impermanence of life, yet retaining the driving urgency of Gnawa ritual musical structures.
There is so much going on in "Ghir Khoudouni" that I'm planning to devote a separate post to a musical analysis of the song. Suffice it to say here that to this day (2026) I know of no song that has so sophisticatedly, sympathetically, and meaningfully transformed musical material from Gnawa ritual in a way that approaches the rich web of signification that drives Gnawa ritual practice.
A couple of additional subjective takes on the 2nd Nass el Ghiwane LP:
The Nass el Ghiwane 1.0 songs included on this LP are remarkable. Youm Malkak (aka Ah Ya Ouine) sounds like nothing else recorded by the group and really shows off for the first time the haunting quality Omar Sayed could bring to a plaintive melody. Al Hassada brings the rural influence to the forefront. The celebratory short call/response phrases that structure the song, the driving rhythmic punctuations, and the ecstatic singing make this one of the most joyful tracks the group ever recorded.
Side 2 of the LP juxtaposes the celebratory Al Hassada with the existential despair and defiant hope of Ghir Khoudouni. Boujemiî's unexpected death before or shortly after the release of this LP makes this juxtaposition all the more devastating and heartbreaking.
Please enjoy the Ya Sah single and the 2nd LP, remastered from my vinyl rips.
Nass el Ghiwane ناس الغيوان Ya Sah 7" يا صاح Polydor 2.225.041 1974
01 Ya Sah يا صاح
Nass el Ghiwane ناس الغيوان Polydor LP 2.944 008 1974
A1 Lahmami لهمامي A2 Mazine M'Dihek مزين امديحك A3 Youm Malkak يوم ملقاك B1 El Hassada الحصادة B2 Ghir Khoudouni غير خدوني
[2] Abderrahmane Paco, interviewed in Abderrahmane Kirouj (Paco), episode of Nostalgia, dir: Rachid Nini, 2003
[3] Hassan Habibi, interviewed in Abderrahmane Paco, episode of Fi Adhakihra, dir: Imane Tadouat, Jahan Inouaoui.
[4] Larbi Riad, interviewed in Abderrahmane Paco, episode of Fi Adhakihra, dir: Imane Tadouat, Jahan Inouaoui.
[5] L-Ghmami is one of the cohort of mluk entities known as the Bawwab that includes Sidi Mimoun the Gnawi, Lalla Mimouna, L-Ghmami, Sidi Mimoun Ganga, Baba Siyaf, etc. We've shared a version of this song as recorded by the late great maalem Hmida Boussou (blogpost, youtube). Also, here's a weird version by Mahmoud Guinia with synth drum and electric guitar.
Whoops - this is a correction to my previous post about the recordings of Nass el Ghiwane 1.0. I incorrectly assumed that the first two Nass el Ghiwane 7-inch singles (1972) contained the same version of "Siniya", "Ya Bani El Insane" and "Al Madi Fate" that appeared on their first LP Disque d'Or (1973). I was mistaken. I commend to you the outstanding YouTube channel of Ismael Abo Salma, who has put together chronological playlists of most of the great Moroccan Ghiwani groups. His Nass el Ghiwane playlist starts off with these two singles, and indeed they are different recordings of these groundbreaking songs!
Here is a corrected version of my discography of Nass el Ghiwane 1.0 released while they were together, now with YouTube links:
To atone for my research error, I have obtained a copy of one of these early singles and am sharing a remastered version from my vinyl rip here.
These 1972 studio versions are actually quite different from the 1973 versions. The recording quality is not as good, and the band improved as a unit between 1972 and 1973. By the time they re-recorded these songs for the LP, the arrangements were much tighter. String players Allal Yaala and Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri are supporting the vocals with more sensitivity and playing off of each other more. The 1972 arrangement of "Siniya" is a bit different, including an additional rubato section in the second half of the song. In all, it's fascinating to hear these early versions of the songs. I prefer the 1973 remakes, but these initial sides were what catapulted the group to success.
Well I just stumbled across a whole dramatic film starring Jil Jilala as a band called Jil Jilala! The film "Le Paradis des Pauvres جنة الفقراء", directed by Imane Mesbahi, was released in 2001 or 2002, but it appears to have been filmed much earlier. Mustapha Baqbou is in the film and looks very young (and thin), but the songs featured are studio recordings from before Baqbou's tenure, including two from the Daouiwah album (1984). Baqbou joined the group around 1985, so I'm guessing this may have been filmed around that time.
The leading role is played by group member Moulay Tahar Al Asbahani, and Mohamed Derham is featured prominently in several scenes, in which he acquits himself quite well as an actor. The film also features the well-known Moroccan actress Touria Jabrane. You can watch the whole film on YouTube. It is in French and Moroccan darija, but there are no subtitles.
The film includes lip-synced performances of Jil Jilala's songs "Dak Bya Amrak", "Ah Ya Jilala", "Al Âar A Bouya", and "Daouiwah". It also features incidental music composed and performed by chaâbi/rai star Hamid Bouchenak, and a solo performance by Baqbou of the Gnawa song "Berrma Nana Soutanbi" that appears to have been recorded live for the film (though the synchronization in the YouTube version of the film is a little bit off). If you go to the YouTube page where the film has been uploaded, you can
find my comment which contains time code links to the various musical
pieces in the film.
"the story of five young Moroccans who leave their village in northern Morocco to go work somewhere in Europe. Despite their good intentions, they are confronted daily with racial hatred and xenophobia."
The Wikipedia page for the film claims (without attribution) that it was unsuccessful when released due to poor distribution and an ill-chosen release date. I'm no film expert, but it definitely feels to me like a 1980s film rather than a 2000s film, so that can't have helped its fate in 2001. It's not what I'd call a brilliant film, but it's fun to see these legendary musicians in a different setting (and in swell leather jackets)!
No words needed. Just Rouicha on the lotar and one or two bendir players. Thirty-six minutes of jammy Zayane goodness!
Rouicha Mohamed رويشة محمد Ajmal at-Taqasim âla Aalat al Hajhouj أجمل التقاسيم على آلة الهجهوج [The most beautiful improvisations on the hajhouj instrument] Tichkaphone cassette TCK 763 تشكفون
Here's a Nass el Ghiwane live single from 1972 (or maybe early 1973). These songs appear on the group's first LP in studio versions, but I think this 7" single may have been issued before the LP. It is their first single to not feature the alternate English language name for the group: New Dervich.
As I wrote in my recent post about Nass el Ghiwane's first LP, these two songs pose questions: Fin Ghadi Bya Khouya (Where are you taking me, brother?) and Wach Hna Houma Hna (Are we still us?). Whether Nass el Ghiwane had revolutionary answers to these questions or
not, the act of posing such questions in popular song in 1972 Morocco was a radical artistic act. By leaving the questions unanswered, the group invited their audience to not only ponder their own answers but also to dance in the gap from which the questions emerged - the gap between an ideal envisioned life and lived reality in the postcolony.
These live versions are shorter, faster, and louder than the studio versions found on the LP. Please enjoy this remastered version of the single. I don't believe these sides have ever been reissued on cassette or CD.
Nass el Ghiwane ناس الغيوان Fi Sahra Ûmumiya (In a Public Concert) في سهرة عمومية Polydor 7" 2225014 1972 (possibly 1973)
A) Fin Ghadi Bya (live) فين غادي بي خويا B) Wach Hna Houma Hna (live) واش احنا هما حنا
