I've exhausted my supply of audio to share from the Marrakchi folk revival group Muluk el Hwa. I will link below to a couple additional albums of theirs that are streamable on YouTube. I would like to summarize here what I've been able to find out about the histories of the group itself and of the individual members. There's really not much information online. The three most useful sources I found are a 1988 article in El Pais, a 2005 resume on Afriblog, and a comment thread on this YouTube video clip.
ORIGINS
The group came together somewhere between 1973 and 1976 in Marrakech. According to YouTube commenter @IsmAil-qt2ig, writing in 2024, the original formation of the group
"included members such as the late Abderrahim Adili (عبدالرحيم عادلي), Abdeljalil Belkbir (عبدالجليل بلكير), Abdeljalil Alkodssi (عبدالجليل القادسي), Al-Balbaz (البلبز), Sharif Al-Hallaq (شريف الحلاق), Bakbash (بكباش), and Sharif Al-Azif (الشريف العازف) RIP. After that, a group of individuals joined, such as Hassan Baska (حسن باسكا), the late Abderrahman Turki (عبدالرحمان تركي), Al-Mahjoub (المحجوب), and Abdul Rahim Bish (عبدالرحيم بيش)"
YouTuber @essaidelaadili1390 comments that the above names may reflect the initial recordings made by the group but that other founding writers and composers in the group included
the late brother Abderrahman bin Sheikh (عبد الرحمان بن الشيخ) and Fadel Sharif Mohamed Sidi (فضل الشريف محمد سدي)
1980 is cited as a breakthrough year in several sources: the group won an award from Moroccan Ministry of Youth and were "discovered" by Spanish writer Juan Goytisolo. The latter would facilitate the group's travel to Spain for musical performances, which in turn led to recordings and musical collaborations through at least the early 1990s. (See my earlier posts on the group's Spanish albums here and here.)
Meanwhile, they continued to record and release cassettes in Morocco. The earliest recording of the group I can find is this album shared on YouTube by user Ismael Abo Salma. which he dates to 1982. I believe these songs are all composed by the group.
The catalog number of this cassette (Sakhi Disque S.L. 246) indicates that it predates the Sakhi Disque cassettes I shared here, here, and here at Moroccan Tape Stash. The j-card pictures 6 group members. I can't tell for sure, but it appears to be the same 6 members credited on the 1986 Spanish album Cançons De Jmà-El-Fnà. I'm not sure if the first 2 are correctly identified, but the other 4 are certain. From left to right:
- Abderrahim Elaadili (musical director, lyricist)
- Abdellah Aloui Inbui (strings, vocals)
- Sidi Mohamed Sahal (percussion)
- Abdeljalil Kodssi (percussion, vocals, composition)
- Abderrahim Ben Bich (percussion, vocals, music composition)
- Hassan Larfaoui (sintir)
1992-2005
By the time they recorded 1992's Kasbah album, the lineup had lost Kodssi, Ben Bich, and Aloui Inbui and added:
- Abdeljalil Belkabir (banjo, oud, vocals, composition) - though it appears that Belkabir had been an original member of the group as well (see above)
- Abderrahman Ettargui (flute, vocals)
- Mohamed Aitbrahim (oud, violin, vocals)
Soon thereafter, another change of lineup occured, as well as a change of artistic direction. An album called Hna Khout dates to 1993 according to Ismael Abo Salma. The j-card pictures 5 members - I recognize (standing left to right) Abderrahman Ettargui, Hassan Larfaoui and Sidi Mohamed Sahal, and possibly also Mohamed Aitbrahim (seated right).
The most jarring change is the addition of an electronic keyboard on this album. Indeed, the keyboard's presence seems contrary to the group's aesthetic as articulated in the 1988 El Pais article:
Regarding the possibility of introducing non-native instruments into their line-up, the group is adamant: "Never. We don't want to do anything other than folk music. We want to make our music, the music of clapping and krakech, not that of drums and bass. The only thing we're thinking of introducing into the group is a flute and another voice."
Despite this significant change, the album is enjoyable - the vocal and song structures remind me of the Jil Jilala albums of the late '80s. I wonder who is doing the songwriting and arranging here since the group no longer contains Ben Bich, Koddsi, Belkabir, and possibly Elaadili. (The latter was not always pictured along with the group to begin with, ostensibly because his role was that of lyricist more than musician).
The 2005 Afriblog resume describes Muluk el Hwa as a cultural association as well as a musical ensemble. It lists 2 people as points of contact:
- Abderrahman Ettargui (flute player who joined the group before 1992's Kasbah album) as president of the association and member of the group, and
- Abderrazak
Hadir (sintir player who was not listed as group member on any of the
earlier releases) as artistic director and group member.
Overall, the group seems to have made quite a few recordings. Per the El Pais article, they had released 5 cassettes in Morocco by 1988. Per the Afriblog resume, by 2005 they had released something like 19 albums, including the 3 Spanish LPs though that number seems very high to me. I hope to find more of them if they do exist.
ABDERRAHIM BEN BICH'S MULUK EL HWA
I have found no further internet trace of the group's 21st century activity until 2022. In that year, Abderrahim Ben Bich (who was not in the 1992-94 lineup of the group) launched YouTube and Facebook pages for a seemingly rebooted Muluk el Hwa. This video clip lists 4 members of the group:
- Abderrahim Ben Bich - leader of group
- Abderrazaq Hadir - sintir
- Mustapha Alqaqi - guitar
- Almahjoub Assaker - vocals
7 tracks on this channel are credited to Muluk el Hwa but were not originally recorded under that name. They are recordings made between 2001 and 2004 by Ben Bich with a French group called No Problemos for a planned double-CD album that was apparently never released. [1] The collaborative tracks available on YouTube feature quite nice Gnawa/world fusion arrangements. The No Problemos YouTube channel features a live clip of Ben Bich performing with the group in 2002.
There appear to be only 2 newly recorded studio tracks on the channel credited to Muluk el Hwa without No Problemos: Kati Bala and Wahyana - both are versions of Gnawa songs, featuring guinbri and qraqeb, drum set and keyboard - nice enough as pop-Gnawa, but not earth-shattering. The other studio tracks credited to Muluk el Hwa are vintage recordings: Assalamo Alaikom (a 90s-sounding remake of "Hadafna" from the Kasbah album), and Mahboubi, a lovely long track that sounds like the group's 1980s incarnation.
One final clip from this new Muluk el Hwa is a nice one - a casual acoustic session, likely recorded on a mobile phone, featuring Ben Bich (vocals), Abderrazak Hadir (guinbri, vocals and Arabic recitation), and a third individual (called Mustapha by one of the YouTube commenters) doing recitations in English:
It's an interesting take on the Gnawa ritual song that opens the Negcha suite, interspersing the traditional melody with new lyrics and recited lines in Arabic and English. This could be an auspicious opening for a rebooted Muluk el Hwa. However, there has been no activity on the Facebook page since 2022 and no new musical clips on the YouTube channel since 2023. It would be nice to hear more from them!
That's all I've got on Muluk el Hwa as such. I'll post again soon with some info about the group members' trajectories outside of Muluk el Hwa. Eid Mubarak this weekend to those observing Ramadan. And as always, Free Palestine.
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[1] There was apparently an electronic release of 8 Ben Bich tracks from the album in 2017, now including the name Muluk el Hwa along with Ben Bich's name, but it seems to no longer be available: https://www.facebook.com/cdabdou
