Tkitikate! Tkitikate! Party Time! Excellent!

I tell ya, some of the best fun I've had in Morocco has been at parties in Marrakech where a tkitikat group comes to play. I'm surprised I'm 10 years into this blog and I've never really written about tkitikat. Well, I guess it's 'cos I didn't have any straight up tkitikat tapes (other than possibly the great Pokémon tape). Now, thanks to Mr. Tear (late of the esteemed Snap, Crackle & Pop blog, and currently hive master at Hive Mind Records), I've got a reason to write about it, 'cos he sent along this fine tape rip!

Tkitikat is a style of music played by men's percussion and singing groups. (It was always played by men, in my experience, but I haven't been to Morocco for a while, and perhaps there are female tkitikat groups now.) The primary venue for this music is at parties.

Repertoire - like a good wedding band (another type of party band), a good tkitikat group has dozens of songs in its repertoire that originate in various styles and historical periods. To end up in the tkitikat repertoire, though, they ought to share a few key elements:

• They ought to be in that 6/8 chaâbi rhythm (or close enough that it fits)
• They ought to be songs that lots of people know OR they ought to have short catchy refrains that people can learn easily and quickly SO THAT people can join in singing
• Bonus points: When a song's verses are simple enough that you can make up additional verses that were not in the original. (cf. Najat Âatabou's "Hadi Kedba Bayna")
  

Ensemble - the group will have a variety of drums. The group here is using a tar (tambourine), a darbuka, and some tâarijas. As opposed to female percussion and singing groups like âouniyat or houariyat who perform seated, the tkitikat groups play while standing, sometimes facing each other in a circle, sometimes broken out and moving around the room interacting with partygoers. And unlike a wedding orchestra, which typically features one primary lead singer, the tkitikate group tends to feature any or all members of the group as lead singers.

PLEASE STAND BY FOR A COUPLE OF FREE-FLOATING MUSICOLOGICAL MUSINGS:

Gender and percussion groups: I wonder why the female percussion groups like âouniyat or houariyat typically perform while seated, whereas the men's groups like tkitikat and âbidat errma perform standing 🤔 ... Perhaps it's because the male groups are the sorts of groups that one might also encounter in an outdoor halqa performing circle, whereas the female groups are more exclusive to indoor private parties.

Etymology and regionality: I wonder whether tkitikat is something that originated in Northern Morocco. The word is a diminutive of taktouka, which in Morocco refers most famously to the taqtouqa jbaliya - the taqtouqa of the Jbala region of northern Morocco. (We shared a tape of that a while back.) When I was living in Marrakech, a friend who played in a tkitikat group was excited when his group was able to learn some songs and rhythms particular to the North, so there is certainly a Northern tradition. In fact, I remember the groups in Marrakech going less often under the name tkitikat and more often under the name dqiqiya. The latter is a diminutive of daqqa, which is a musical form specific to Marrakech and Taroudant 🤔 ... 

AND NOW BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED BLOG POST

To my mind, tkitikat groups seem like an active repository of Moroccan musical memory. Or like a jukebox - so many songs to choose from, and designed so that everyone in the crowd should find an old or new favorite song to please them and entice them to dance and be merry. The current tape is no exception. Track 1 has a Gnawa sound to it. Track 2 is an old Houcine Slaoui song from the 1940s. Track 3 is a version of Khiffat Rjel (better known as Ach Dani), Ismail Ahmed's classic 1960s hit, sung here with the words transformed from a song of unrequited love to a comic song about different kinds of food, and track 6 is a straight up version of the Jbala standard Ain Zora. Ranging wide across the regional and temporal map!

Well, while I was searching for some nice tkitikat video to share, I actually found a clip from this very album! 👆 It looks like the cassette is the soundtrack to a VCD, which dates this to probably the mid-2000s to early 2010s. And it turns out that on the first track, the lead vocal is taken by none other than the well-known Gnawi Mâalem Abdelkbir 'Lechheb' Merchane! I understand that many years ago, he was a member of Hamid Zahir's group. And Hamid Zahir's music is basically tkitikat with an oud added, so this is some old familiar musical territory for him! Abdelkbir is one of 3 lead singers on this album. He sings track1, the last bit of track 3, and tracks 4 and 7. A comic-oriented singer is featured on track 2 and most of 3, and a third singer is featured on track 6. Track titles listed here are my best guesses.

Tkitikate Marrakech Volume 2 التقيتيقات المراكشية
Société CHAMUSIC cassette شركة شلموزيك

1 Sidi Musa Âri Âlik
2 Ahdi Rasek La Ifouzou Bik Al Qouman Ya Flan (and suite)
3 Ach Dani L-Bibi Tani (and suite)
4 Mellit Lghram
5 Malou Itghagha / Ana Mellit Lhoub
6 Âin Zora (and suite)
7 Wa Lhiha Wa Lhih
8 Qefla

320 | FLAC

Ashura in Marrakech - Daqqa Marrakchiya

In honor of Ashura, which is celebrated this week, I'm breaking away momentarily from my series of Jbala posts to return to my beloved Marrakech.

Here's a swell tape of daqqa marrakchiya, a fantastic genre performed especially for Ashura, famously in Marrakech (though its roots are apparently in Taroudant).

It's surprisingly difficult to find video examples of it online. The only one I could find is this snippet from the streets of Marrakech, apparently from the Sidi Youssef quarter:



It's performed by large groups of men, most of them with a taârija drum, with one man on a pair of qraqeb. It starts slooooooooooooooow and heavy with looooooong poetic stanzas.  Eventually it builds in speed, the rhythms become less complex, and ends with a raucous, deafening section in good 'old 6/8.

It seems like many Moroccans use the term daqqa marrakchiya to refer to what I knew in Marrakech as dqiqiyya or tkitikat - i.e., men's perussion/party ensembles:



These groups are great fun, but should not be confused with the daqqa I'm presenting here.

Etymological excursion: I'm pretty sure the names of these percussion groups are diminutive forms of the names of other Moroccan genres: dqiqqiya being a diminutive form of daqqa, and tkitikat sounding like a diminutive form of taktouka (about which, more next week).

Back to the real daqqa: In bygone days, each neighborhood in Marrakech had its own daqqa group that would perform all night, outdoors, on the night of Ashura. The rhythm of the long, slow opening section (the âayt), is a lopsided thing. It alternates 3 bangs on the taârija with 4 bangs, and each grouping is separated by a clack of the qarqaba whose delivery is streeeeeeeetched out beyond any reasonable sense of meter. Very striking stuff - check the excerpt below for a bit from the beginning and a bit from the end of the tape.

If you like the sound of this, (and I know you do), try to find a copy of the CD La Daqqa: Tambours sacrés de Marrakech. It's a lovely 62 minute recording (one single track!), with excellent performers.

Dekka de Marrakech: Majmuât ad-daqqa al-marrakchiya under the direction of al Hajj Muhammad Baba
Excerpts from sides 1 and 2


Get it all here.

PS - I love the blue Sawt al Haouz cassette shell:

Not forgetting the logo featuring the Koutoubia:

And the Doctor Who-ish psychedelic j-card design. Nuff said.