Special report

The 8th Mawazine festival

"Rhythms of the World" in Rabat

Rabat 

20/05/2009 - 

Morocco's capital city, Rabat, is normally a quiet, business-like place. But between 15 and 23 May 2009, the city has been partying to the "rhythms of the world" at the 8th edition of the Mawazine Festival. RFI Musique has been on hand to sample the thrilling mix of Rai, Berber fusion, radical hip-hop and a host of A-list international stars.

The Mawazine festival pulled out all the stops this year, putting together a high-calibre line-up including Australian pop diva Kylie Minogue, Stevie Wonder, Ennio Morricone, former UB 40 star Ali Campbell, South Africa's white Zulu Johnny Clegg and the Malian duo Amadou & Mariam. What's more, the big-budget nine-day event involves ten different venues, a glittering array of street performers, a 'new talent' contest and over 100 singers and musicians. A fittingly extravagant show for an event staged in the capital, Rabat, under the patronage of King Mohammed VI.

Mawazine's celebration of musical diversity is not limited to the glitzier areas of town, either. On Saturday 16 May, Algeria's Rai king Khaled put on a royal performance on the Qamra stage, playing to a crowd of some 60,000 fans assembled in the working-class neighbourhood of Yacoub El Mansour. In fact, Khaled turned out to be such a major draw that it was impossible to verify exact audience numbers, every available stretch of avenue, terrace, tree and bus shelter roof being packed to absolute capacity. Boosted by such a warm welcome, Khaled gave one of the most memorable concerts of his career, striding around the stage with a Moroccan flag draped across his shoulders. A charged symbolic gesture at a time when diplomatic relations between Morocco and Algeria are strained to say the least.

Sunday night, on a small stage erected in the city centre, traditional Berber culture was celebrated in style with performances from the Moroccan-Dutch outfit Imetlaâ, Abdlewahed Hajjaoui and Fatima Tabaamraat, the 'grande dame' of Amazigh (Berber) music from the Moroccan region of Souss. Imetlaâ proved to be one of the most exciting new discoveries of this year's festival. The majority of the musicians in the band grew up in Holland where their parents made new lives for themselves after emigrating from the northern mountainous region of the Rif in the 1960s. These young musicians grew up listening to funk, reggae and rock’n’roll as well as soaking up Izran, a poetic Rif take on the blues, that their mothers regularly sang around the house. Imetlaâ (literally "vagabonds") have various day jobs as labourers, civil servants, concierges and insurance agents but when they get together on stage their roots surge through in a compelling fusion reworking of Rif tradition. Imetlaâ are the first Amazigh group, for instance, to incorporate the saxophone in their musical mix.

Mr Bigg

Monday 18 May was hip-hop night with the Mawazine festival showcasing home-grown talent in the form of Fez City Clan, Casa Crew and Bigg, the "enfant terrible" of Moroccan hip-hop. Judging by the huge turn-out at both venues  - over 55,000 people in all - hip-hop is definitely alive and kicking in Morocco. Given the scarcity of record labels and distribution structures in their homeland, Moroccan rappers have invented their own gritty, hardhitting material since the 2000s, addressing their young fans in the street directly without any kind of commercial or marketing spin.

Fez City Clan put on a festive and ultra-energetic show at Mawazine, using hip-hop as a voice of youth protest. But the undoubted highlight of Hip-Hop Night was Don Bigg, the self-proclaimed Godfather of Moroccan hip-hop. Bigg - aka Taoufik El Hazeb - was catapulted from the status of complete unknown to overnight star following the release of his debut album in 2006. Bigg cut a mere 1,000 copies of his debut opus, produced on a shoestring budget, but three years on the 25-year-old rap star boasts as big a following as Rai king Khaled. Making liberal use of bling-bling clichés associated with the East Coast rap scene in the U.S. (two luxury Hummer 4x4s were conspicuously parked out back of his dressing room), Bigg also points a critical finger at Moroccan politics and government affairs. "Rap has to have something to say to people and it has to make money!" declares the ambitious young rapper from Casablanca. Bigg, who has also pursued a sideline producing instrumentals for other artists, is already positioning himself as Morocco's answer to Dr Dre. "No, make that Dr Big!" he quips at the end of his hip-hop mega-show.

Batoul Marouani, the Sahrawi diva ... 3 Questions  Batoul Marouani, a singer from the city of Laayoune, in the Western Sahara, wowed the crowd when she performed at the Place Moulay Al Hassan, in Rabat, on Tuesday 19 May. The husky-voiced Sahrawi diva graciously accepted to take part in our mini-interview before going out on stage. RFI Musique : How has Hassani music - traditionally played by the people of the Western Sahara - developed over the years? Hassani music was traditionally played in the desert with musicians sitting in the moonlight. But these days it's more commonly performed at weddings and parties. Musicians have continued the tradition, but given it a more modern slant and the poems which make up the heart of Hassani music have evolved a great deal, too. In the past, Hassani singers celebrated the joys of nature and, most importantly, love. Women play a very important role in our society. They're the ones who keep the home fires burning, because the menfolk often go away for such long stretches of time. That's why the great desert poets such as Day Esalami and Mohamed Maarouf vaunted the merits of Sahrawi women and celebrated their love for them. Many Sahrawi women dance, but they don't often sing. How did you come to be a singer yourself? I was born an artist! I started singing when I was five. My father had his own troupe in the seventies and my mother used to dance with them wearing traditional dress. My father was one of the first singers who promoted the Sahara as an integral part of Morocco. I was the eldest child in the family so I naturally grew up learning music with my brothers. My father left me a lot of poems which I'm adapting now in my own way, trying to strike a balance between modernity and tradition. Do you feel close to other musical traditions from the Sahara?  I think the people of the Sahara have a common cultural base. We all have the same strong relationship with the desert, with nature and with poetry. But each country has developed its own musical style, although we've come to inspire each other a lot, too. Personally, I listen to a lot of Berber music and I'm interested in the history of Amazigh culture. There are actually a number of towns in the Sahara that have Amazigh names like Tagant, for instance, and there are ancient cave paintings in the desert with Berber words. The people of the Sahara definitely share the same roots. I can hear that in the music.

Eglantine  Chabasseur

Translation : Julie  Street