(Arab. Mamlaka al-Maghrebia).
Country in north-west Africa. It lies in the north-west corner of the continent, flanked by the Atlantic ocean and the Mediterranean. Four mountain ranges – the Rif, Middle-Atlas, High-Atlas and Anti-Atlas – divide the kingdom into distinct ecological and cultural zones. These include the different mountain regions themselves, the fertile plains of the Atlantic coast, dry steppe to the east of the Middle-Atlas, and the Sahara desert to the south and east of the High- and Anti-Atlas. This geographical position and topological variety have contributed to great cultural diversity. Many Moroccan musical styles and areas, including the Rif mountains, the Jbala region north of Fez and the desert region of the deep south, have yet to be studied in depth.
PHILIP SCHUYLER
The many varieties of Moroccan music draw on several separate musical cultures from the Middle East, Africa and southern Europe. The indigenous Berber peoples, who have inhabited North Africa for at least 2500 years, are generally divided into three groups: Tarifit-speakers (in the Rif mountains), Tamazight-speakers (Middle-Atlas) and Tashlhit-speakers (High-Atlas, Anti-Atlas and the desert beyond). Half the Moroccan population speaks some variety of Berber.
Arabs moved into Morocco from the first wave of Muslim expansion in the 7th century ce onwards; large-scale migration of eastern Arabs occurred in the 11th century. Arabs settled in the cities and plains, eventually becoming the dominant political and economic force in the country. Almost all Berbers converted to Islam and either assimilated themselves into Arab society or withdrew into the mountains. Moroccan culture was influenced by the Muslim courts of medieval Spain (8th–15th centuries), especially when Muslim and Jewish refugees left Spain under pressure from Catholic armies. Since the 10th century, sub-Saharan African musical practices have been brought by merchants, mercenaries, slaves and students of Islam. During the 20th century, music conservatories and the media gave prominence to both contemporary Middle Eastern Arab music and European and American art and popular music. These different musical cultures have influenced each other in various ways.
Within Moroccan music, an important general distinction exists between individual and communal styles. This operates on a continuum, ranging from a solo performer at one end to ensembles with 200 singers at the other. The key difference between the two lies in the relationship of performers to audience. In communal performance most or all members of the assembled gathering are participants in the music-making, as in the early part of a Sufi meeting or at a wedding in the High-Atlas. When specialists perform, on the other hand, a distinct gap between audience and performer is defined by the musician's greater technical ability and (usually) the audience's higher social and economic standing.
Specialist and communal musics generally emphasize different types of instruments. The bendīr (frame drum; fig.1) or ta‘rija (small, hourglass-shaped hand drum) may be played by male or female amateurs or professionals, depending on the context. Melodic instruments are usually the province of male specialists; some, such as the ghaita (ghayta; a double-reed aerophone) or the ribāb (rabāb; the monochord fiddle of the Ishlhin) are played almost exclusively by professionals, usually from hereditary lineages (figs.2–3).
Under the French protectorate (1912–56), and even more after Independence, social and economic changes have strengthened the tendency toward specialization and improved the prospects for professionalism. Labour migration to Europe, urbanization within Morocco and the democratization of education led to a depletion of the pool of competent communal musicians. At the same time, the continuing shift to a cash economy has made full-time professionalism a feasible alternative for many performers. Furthermore, music is strongly supported by the state, through conservatories, festivals and radio and television; state support stems in part from administrators' realization that music is a powerful tool for forging national identity, articulating political ideas, and promoting tourism, and in part because King Hassan II (1929–99) was himself an ardent patron of music. The government's sponsorship of folklore troupes, as a device for promoting tourism, inspiring national pride and advertising Moroccan culture abroad, has created a need for specialized cadres of (formerly) communal musicians.
The great majority of Moroccans are Muslims, some of whom object to the performance of music on religious grounds. Although music itself is not directly condemned in the Qur'an or the sayings of the Prophet, some types of popular song are connected to gambling, prostitution and the drinking of alcohol, all of which are forbidden to Muslims. Attitudes vary widely, however, and in certain areas of the Middle-Atlas and the Jbala mountains music-making may be the principal economic activity of an entire village.
Morocco, §II: Main musical traditions
(i) Andalusian music (al-‘alā al-andalusiyya).
Morocco, §II, 1: Main musical traditions: Religious music
The origins of Moroccan Andalusian music can be traced to southern Spain, where Muslim courts flourished from the 8th to the 15th centuries. Mutual influences between Spain and Morocco are apparent in the music itself and in documents such as the 13th-century Cantigas de Santa Maria. (See also Arab music §I, 3(iv) and 4(iii).)
Al-‘alā al-andalusiyya sounds quite unlike eastern styles of Arab art music (Egypt or Syria) but shares many features, including instrumentation, terminology and organization. Before the 19th century, the ensemble probably consisted of a small group of instruments of contrasting sonority. The rbab (rabāb; a boat-shaped bowed lute with two heavy strings) sketched the principal points of the melody. One or two plucked lutes, an ‘ūd ramal (small, four-string lute) or gunibrī (a three-string semi-spiked lute with a hollowed-out, teardrop-shaped body), provided embellishment in a higher register. The tār (a small tambourine about 15 cm in diameter) controlled the rhythm and tempo. By at least the 19th century, the kamanja (a European violin or viola) was added to the ensemble. The Egyptian ‘ūd (a larger lute with six courses) began to join, and then replace, the ‘ūd ramal.
In the 20th century, under the influence of both European and Egyptian orchestras, the number of instruments grew to as many as a dozen violins and violas and three or four ‘ūd. Some ensembles have added cellos, nāy (end-blown reed flute), piano or saxophone. A derbuga (darabukka, a goblet-shaped drum) usually supplements the more delicate sound of the tār. A single rbab remains the theoretical heart of the ensemble, often played by the leader himself, but the sound is largely drowned out by the rest of the instruments. The rbab is currently falling into disuse. The instrumentalists sing in a heterophonic chorus, but a vocal specialist may sing inshād (unmeasured vocal solo). Ensembles for radio and television may have a separate chorus.
The foundation of the Andalusian school of music is generally attributed to Ziryāb (‘Alī ibn Nāfi‘), a freed Persian slave, who came to the court of ‘Abd al-Rahmān II in Cordoba from Baghdad in 822. He became a celebrated courtier and advocate for a musical doctrine of humours. Ziryāb proposed a system of 24 modes, one for each hour of the day and each endowed by nature with temporal, seasonal and emotional characteristics (see Arab music, §I, 3(iv)). These provided the framework for al-‘alā al-andalusiyya. The music is based on two forms of Arabic poetry, the Muwashshah and Zajal developed in Spain in the 11th and 12th centuries. These represented a dramatic departure from the classical Qasīda, which had dominated Arabic poetry for 500 years. The muwashshah maintained the qasīda distich line form, but its basic unit became the stanza, as varying lines were organized into strophic patterns (seven-line AABBBAA or sometimes truncated, five-line BBBAA). In zajal, poets took even greater liberties with metre and line form, and they expressed themselves in colloquial rather than classical Arabic.
Muwashshahāt and zajal serve as testimony to the ecumenical spirit that prevailed in Muslim Andalusia. Both forms were clearly influenced by indigenous forms of Iberian poetry and some even included a closing couplet in medieval Latin (Romance). The earliest manuscripts of the new forms are transliterated in Hebrew. Jewish musicians continued to be active practitioners of the Andalusian tradition in both sacred and secular contexts. They sang in both Arabic and Hebrew, sometimes alongside Muslim musicians, or in exclusively Jewish groups (most notably, the a cappella ensembles in the synagogue). The major cities of Muslim Spain had variant and competing styles, which were spread through emigration to different cities in North Africa.
The present repertory of al-‘alā al-andalusiyya in Morocco is based primarily on a compilation of song texts collected in the late 18th century by Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Hayk, a musician from Tetuan. Al-Hayk organized the material in 11 nūbāt (from Arabic Nawba: ‘turn’), each identified by its predominant musical mode (tab‘, pl. tubū‘, lit. ‘natural, natural endowment’). The compilation includes songs in 26 different tubū‘; al-Hayk simply included those tubū‘ with a small number of songs in the suite of a related mode, with similar emotional and temporal associations.
Many Moroccan and Middle Eastern modes have similar names and general scale structures, but the systematic use of microtonal intervals typical of the Middle East does not play an important role in Andalusian music. Many Andalusian musicians and conservatory teachers now maintain that the background scale is in effect twelve-tone and equally-tempered, and that the tubū‘ themselves correspond to Western major and minor scales or church modes. It is often difficult to find acoustic reasons for the modal classification of the nūbāt. Ramal l-Maya and Isbihān, for example, have an identical scale structure and share at least one melody.
A nūba is divided into a series of five large sections, each in a different rhythmic mode. These movements (miyāzin, sing. mīzān) are subdivided into a slow beginning (muwassa‘), an accelerating transitional passage (mahzūz or qantra) and a rapid final section (insirāf). By the end, the tempo may be more than double the original speed.
The nūbāt in al-Hayk's compilation are much too long to be played comfortably in one sitting. In a series of recordings of the complete repertory, issued by the government, each nūba takes up six CDs. Rather than taking excerpts from the five miyāzin (as is the practice in Algeria) Moroccan musicians have tended to play continuously through a single movement, or sometimes parts of two. However, in recent years some performers, such as Massano Tazi, have experimented with taking short segments from each mīzān to make a more varied compound form.
A performance generally begins with a bughia or mshelia, a short prelude in free rhythm, played by the entire orchestra (with individual improvisatory flourishes) to establish the character of the mode. This is followed by a tushia (pl. tuwāshī), a measured orchestral overture, usually about five minutes in length. Tuwāshī are also used as instrumental interludes during the performance of some nūbāt. The performance may also include unmeasured, solo instrumental improvisation (taqsīm) and its vocal equivalent (mūwwāl or bitein), both to demonstrate the virtuosity of the musicians and to separate the sections of the mīzān.
Royal patronage of Andalusian music continued into the 20th century. During the reign of Sultan Mūlay ‘Abd al-‘Azīz, a military conservatory was founded under the direction of ‘Umar Ja‘īdī. Later, during the French Protectorate, civilian conservatories were founded, both for western European art music and for Andalusian music (begun by Alexis Chottin in 1930 as a ‘laboratory’ for the study of Moroccan music). Initially, there were music schools only in the largest cities, such as Rabat, Casablanca, Meknes and (particularly in the case of Andalusian music) Fez and Tetouan. In the years since independence (1956), and particularly since the 1970s, there has been a proliferation of conservatories in smaller towns such as Taza and Qsar el-Kebir, which had not historically been centres of Andalusian music.
Royal patronage has also taken the form of broadcasting on radio and television, which serves both as a way to support the musicians and as a way of invoking the majesty of the dynasty (even if it does not reach directly back to Andalusia).
Andalusian music is often used as a filler between programmes, and it is also broadcast during the last hour leading up to the breaking of the fast during Ramadan. During the period of mourning following the death of King Hassan II, Andalusian music and malhūn (see below) were the first musical forms introduced on the radio after several days of Qur'anic recitation.
Morocco, §II, 1: Main musical traditions: Religious music
Malhūn, an urban song style closely associated with Andalusian music, is thought to have originated in the Tafilalet, a chain of oases south of the Atlas mountains. Originally practised primarily by artisans and merchants, malhūn is distinguished by the colloquial, but archaic and learned dialect of its long texts. The song is strophic in form, often with a choral refrain (lazima or harba); each strophe has a complex rhyme scheme, sometimes modelled on the muwashshah. Malhūn uses melodies of limited range. The basic metre is 2/4, although in certain sections 5/8 or 6/8 may be introduced. The song is delivered in an understated, almost conversational fashion, but the shifting accents and tight word-play requires a nimble tongue. In the early 1960s malhūn had fallen out of favour with its traditional audience, the urban middle class. Later in the decade, however, a wave of cultural nationalism sparked interest in the form among intellectuals. Their work attracted people in the theatre and, eventually, a new form of urban popular music developed.
The text of malhūn is known as qasīda (pl. qasā'id). The poems share many features with the classical Arabic form, including its monorhyme and monometric pattern; under the influence of the muwashshah some formal complexity may be introduced. A number of poems have a ternary, or even a quinquinary line form, and lines are usually grouped in stanzas of four to ten lines. Sometimes the monorhyme changes from stanza to stanza. There is almost always a choral refrain consisting of the first line or two of text. A short introductory text (serraba), sung to a quick 5/8 metre, is sometimes added and many qasā'id add three lines of call and response (nā‘ūra: ‘waterwheel’) to the beginning of later stanzas. In the last stanza, the singer may include a metric modulation from 2/4 to 6/8 (more rarely 5/8) leading into the final refrain, which is repeated several times at a rapidly accelerating tempo. The singer may also modulate the melody from stanza to stanza, usually by raising the pitch level by one scale degree. Where two or more qasā'id share the same metric pattern and melody, two soloists may alternate stanzas, each singing from a different text.
Morocco, §II, 1: Main musical traditions: Religious music
Across the central belt of the country (from the eastern Middle-Atlas to the Atlantic plains) women are a dominant force in professional music. They are known as shikhāt (sing. shikha, ‘venerable woman’, masculine shikh), a pseudo-honorific applied to many professional performers. Both Arab and Berber shikhāt are accompanied by a small ensemble of male musicians on kamanja (or European violin or viola played vertically on the knee), gunibrī (a three- or four-string plucked lute) and bendīr (a round frame drum). The female singer-dancers range in number from four to more than a dozen and generally carry small hand drums (ta‘arija) with which they punctuate their phrases and play polyrhythmic interludes. The women perform standing in a line or a circle, swaying gently and moving slowly as a group while they sing. The end of each song, or suite of songs, leads into a faster instrumental section in which the women dance solo or in pairs.
Shikhāt are widely regarded to be prostitutes since they perform in public before men but are not dependent on any single man for love or money. Their male accompanists act as managers and agents for the group and may also train the women and provide them with new texts and melodies. Nevertheless, a well-known female singer, such as hajia Hamdaouia, can have the dominant voice in group decisions and performances, and some women compose or improvise their own songs.
However, there are differences between the Arabic-speaking plains musicians and the Berber-speaking mountain musicians. The Berber songs (izlan) are more tightly coordinated and group-oriented. The Middle-Atlas women generally sing in heterophonic unison to a more pronounced, steady beat. The women of the plains sing al-‘aita songs, passing the solo lead as they tire or want to add comment. Middle-Atlas Berbers often sing their popular songs in Arabic to reach a wider audience. Over the past 25 years, male and female performers, such as Rouicha Mohamed and Najat Atabou, have achieved national and international recognition.
Morocco, §II, 1: Main musical traditions: Religious music
Berber-speaking peoples in both the Middle-Atlas (Imazighen) and the High-Atlas (Ishlhin) have groups of itinerant musicians who are entertainers and bearers of news and moral lessons. In the past, musicians travelled between villages and markets around harvest time. They played for small donations or hoped to be invited to weddings, rewarded for their services with food and lodging, or perhaps a small payment in kind.
In the Middle-Atlas, these musicians are known as imdyazn. Although their poetry is one of high seriousness, the group includes a clown (bughānim) who also plays the zamr (mizmār; a double-clarinet) or talawat (end-blown flute). Two other musicians respond to the lead singer (amdyaz) and accompany him on a large round frame drum, about 50–60 cm in diameter, known as bendīr in Arabic and allun in Tamazight. Occasionally a violin or viola may also be included in the ensemble.
In the High-Atlas, professional musicians are called rwais (sing. ra’īs, ‘leader, president’); an analogous term, shikh, is used among some Arabic-speakers and Middle-Atlas Berbers. While the Middle-Atlas Imazighen use long, flowing diatonic melodies with microtonal intervals and an ambitus of a 5th or less, the High-Atlas Ishlhin people use more angular pentatonic tunes covering a range of an octave and a half.
The most characteristic instrument of the rwais is the ribāb, a monochord spike fiddle with an oblique string and a rounded frame body, covered with skin on both sides. Like the Middle Eastern rabāba, it was probably originally a soloist's instrument, complementing the voice and punctuating long narrative songs. Al-Hajj Bel‘aid (c1875–c1945) is credited as one of the first to create an ensemble combining the ribāb with the lotar (a three- or four-string, semi-spiked plucked lute with a skin-covered, bowl-shaped body) and the nāqūus (a bell originally made of a copper tube, now usually made from a car's brake drum). In the past, rwais sometimes used a short end-blown flute (tagwmamt) and a frame drum to attract attention at the beginning of a performance in a marketplace, but during the session of amarg (sung poetry) they used only the string instruments and nāqūs. Since the 1970s, some rwais have included drums (and occasionally an electric guitar) in imitation of other forms of popular music.
Both the rwais and the imdyazn performed song texts containing political, religious and moral commentary, as well as personal accounts of their own travels. They carried news from tribe to tribe and from the city to the country. They also served as musical mediators. In the 1930s their instrumental repertory included both bugle calls and the military version of Andalusian music called khamsa u khamsīn, which they had picked up during performances for Berber troops in their barracks. As well as performing in their own styles, they often join in the performance of local collective styles, such as ahwash in the High- and Anti-Atlas, and ahidus in the Middle-Atlas. The rwais insist that the best melodies come from the countryside; one of their reasons for travel is to pick up melodies from village celebrations or from workers in the fields. In turn, village musicians incorporate songs from the rwais into their local styles.
Since the 1930s some Berber professional musicians have expanded their range to reach Berber-speakers settled in Holland, Belgium and, especially, France.
Professional musicians, particularly the rwais, have begun to settle in Moroccan cities like Marrakesh, Agadir and Casablanca, where there are substantial populations of Berber-speakers. There they can participate more easily in the cash economy, not only at weddings and other occasions, but also in restaurants and nightclubs, which provide steady work. In the countryside a good transportation network allows them to cover a wide range of territory as opportunities arise.
In performances in the mountains, the mixing of sexes was considered shameful. A group of rwais consisted only of men, although young apprentice dancers might dress in women's clothes and jewellery. In the 1930s, however, groups of rwais were hired to entertain in brothels maintained for the French protectorate troops, and they began to incorporate female singers and dancers (raisat) into their ensembles. Today raisat are a fixture in most groups, and some of the best-known singers are women.
Morocco, §II: Main musical traditions
Communal music is particularly associated with the Berbers of the Atlas mountains, but rural Arabs and city-dwellers have their own forms as well. For example, the Jbala, Arabic-speaking peoples in the foothills of the western Rif mountains, have a line dance called haidus, whose name and style are reminiscent of the ahidus of the Middle-Atlas Berbers. Communal performances are usually made up of two antiphonal choirs of singers and dancers, accompanied by various drums, especially the bendīr. In the Souss valley and in the plains at the foot of the north slope of the High-Atlas, Arabs and their Arabic-speaking Berber neighbours combine small frame drums with long (40 cm), slim (10 cm) single-headed drums to play an intensely polyrhythmic form known as l-unasa, hemwada or huwara.
In the cities, impromptu ensembles are a frequent part of wedding celebrations, but there are more fixed urban communal forms. In Taroudant and Marrakesh, groups of women have their own style of huwara, and men celebrate ‘Āshūrā (the 10th of Muharram, the first month of the Muslim calendar) by beating on t‘arij (hourglass-shaped drums) and performing daqqa, which may last until dawn.
In the High-, Middle- and Anti-Atlas, communal song and dance is widely regarded as both the most serious and entertaining form of music. The ensemble consists of antiphonal choruses accompanied by frame drums, and sometimes other instruments. The ahidus form, in the Middle-Atlas, makes frequent use of asymmetrical metres, and the same narrow diatonic scales as the imdyazn. The ahwash form is sung to pentatonic melodies with, in most cases, duple or compound duple meters. Furthermore, while ahwash keeps males and females in separate lines (fig.4), facing each other or in concentric circles, an ahidus may mix the two, alternating males and females in the same line. Ahwash is the epitome of communal music, in terms of its size and its connection to place. Local style is considered – with pride – to be a marker of village or tribal identity. Melodies, rhythm, instrumentation and language all vary, as do the rules of participation. Sexual segregation is the norm throughout the High- and Anti-Atlas, but its nature differs even within a single valley. In one village men and women may perform separate dances at the same time, in the next only unmarried girls may be allowed to dance in separate lines with the men, while in a third, the female participants may be married women and divorcees.
The basis of the ahwash ensemble is the frame drum, found in a variety of different sizes, tunings and names, e.g. allun, tallunt, tagwalt, depending on the size of the instrument and the tribe of origin. High-Atlas frame drums are smaller in diameter (30–35 cm) and shallower than those of Middle-Atlas Berbers or Arabic-speaking Moroccans. The skins are stretched completely over the outside of the frame and stitched to the wood at the bottom. Snares and cymbals are rare. The ahwash drum choir includes from three to over 30 drummers, organized into parts. The largest group, usually comprising the least experienced musicians, lays down the basic beat, a second group plays a counter rhythm and a third (usually only one drummer) improvises against both on the tightest, sharpest drum. This stratification is clearest in the music of the central High-Atlas; further west the ensembles are smaller in size and the drums more uniform in timbre. An ahwash in the western High-Atlas may also include other instruments such as a short end-blown flute (tagwmamt or tal‘awadt) and, particularly in the style called taskiwin, small single-headed and hourglass-shaped hand-drums (agwal or tagwalt).
A performance usually begins with improvised poetry, in an extended solo or a contest between two or more poets. Poets enjoy the literary or musical challenge, but may also debate issues of local politics. As the contest comes to a close, two large choruses, separate lines of men and women, take up a line of poetry in alternation. After several repetitions (during which a poet may shout out a new line to sing), the drum chorus enters, one or two players at a time, until the whole ensemble settles into a coherent rhythm. The tempo accelerates gradually for several minutes until the lead drummer takes the group into a ‘pass’ (tizi), a metric modulation from, usually, duple to compound duple metres. At the same time, the melody is shortened and split between the choruses. Eventually the singers put more energy into dance and the music focusses on the drums. A single ahwash may last from 15 to 45 minutes. As in other communal forms, the outcome is never certain, since some of the musicians may not be experienced or performers may resist the direction of the leaders. This tension and uncertainty adds to the excitement.
Morocco, §II: Main musical traditions
The call to prayer (adhān, Moroccan adan) is perhaps the most common musical phenomenon in Morocco (and the rest of the Islamic world), recited from mosque rooftops, doorways and minarets. For many people, it is still an important means of measuring time. Qur'anic recitation (qirā’a) may be heard almost anywhere, at any time of the day, performed by a group of worshippers after prayer, by a beggar on the street or by a shopkeeper practising devotional exercises while waiting for customers.
Forms differ according to the reader's region of origin and level of training. Tulba (Arab.: ‘students [of Islam]’) are specialists in Qur'anic recitation and hymns of praise. Groups of tulba are called in to perform at auspicious occasions, such as the dedication of a new building, a wedding and particularly at funerals. Many serve as Qur'anic school teachers, scribes or spiritual doctors. They usually perform on one or two reciting tones, with a discernible pulse but no fixed metre. In the High-Atlas, tulba preface their recitation with an antiphonal prayer reminiscent of ahwash (see §3 below), followed by an energetic rendering of the text punctuated by extended tones ending in a whoop.
Tajwīd is the most complex form of Qur'anic recitation, entailing a set of rules that govern the pronunciation and intonation of each syllable. A good reciter must be a talented musician, even though he may not recognize his art as music. A performance of tajwīd resembles the unmeasured improvisation of voice (mawwāl or bitein) or instruments (taqsīm) in secular art music. Indeed, aspiring musicians are frequently advised to model their improvisation on tajwīd. (See also Islamic religious music, §I, 3 and 4.)
Morocco has perhaps a dozen prominent Muslim mystical religious associations, and many smaller ones. Some of these first rose to prominence in resisting Portuguese incursions in the 15th century. The tarīqa (‘path’) offers a way to enlightenment, often using song and sometimes dance to achieve an ecstatic state. Some tarīqat limit themselves to the recitation of litanies and the singing of hymns. Others, like the Heddawa, accompany their songs with large, single-headed pottery vase drums (herrazī). The Jilāla use a long end-blown flute (qasaba) and bendīr for their ceremonies, while the ‘Aissawa and the Hamadsha, two of the largest groups, bring in musicians to perform on the ghaita and tbel or tabl (a double-headed side drum).
The tarīqat generally meet in local lodges on Thursday evening, and they also come together for critical events, such as the marriage, illness or death of a member or associate. Their most visible (and audible) performances, however, take place during pilgrimages to the tomb of their patron saint. In the case of ‘Aissāwa and Hamadsha associations, the ceremony (hadra) begins with the recitation of a litany (dhikr) and the singing of poems (qasīda) in honour of Allah, the Prophet and the saints. During the early stages of the ceremony, the devotees may accompany themselves on various instruments. Later the ghaita and tbel players (generally two of each) come in to accompany dance, which may lead to possession by a saint or spirit (see also Islamic religious music, §II). (These musicians are professionals and not necessarily members of the association; indeed, they may play for other brotherhoods, as well as for processions celebrating weddings and circumcisions.)
The Gnawa have their roots in communities of sub-Saharan Africans (mostly from the region of the old Mali empire) brought to Morocco as slaves and mercenaries, from the 16th century. (Similar communities, with similar practices, exist in Algeria, Tunisia and Libya). Their background is reflected in their belief system, which draws on Islam and traditional sub-Saharan religions. Many spirits in the Gnawa pantheon have close analogues in West Africa, and others bear the names of tribes in the Sahel, such as Bambara and Fulani (FulBe). Members of the group consider themselves to be good Muslims, however, and follow religious precepts. They sing primarily in Arabic, constantly invoking the names and epithets of Allah, the Prophet Muhammad and other recognized prophets and saints. The multiplicity of their beliefs is resolved in the character of their patron saint, Bilāl, the freed Ethiopian slave who became the Prophet's first muezzin (caller to prayer).
Some groups of Gnawa appear frequently in the streets and markets of large cities, as well as some villages in the High-Atlas. They perform acrobatic dances accompanied by large, double-headed side drums (tbel) and barbell-shaped metal crotales (qarāqib), soliciting passers-by for donations. These public performances appear to be light entertainment, but in another domain Gnawa music is very serious indeed. In all-night ceremonies, known as derdeba or lila, Gnawa musicians and officiants perform for the pleasure of beneficial spirits and for the propitiation of malicious ones, in order to secure peace of mind and cure the diseases of their devotees. The ritual is marked by transformations of all the senses and structured around a series of dance suites dedicated to seven families of saints and spirits, each characterized by specific colours, odours, flavours, feelings, actions and sounds.
A lila (‘night’) generally lasts from sunset until dawn, and in some cases a full derdeba may stretch over several nights. The length depends on the mood of the participants, the number of spirits to be propitiated, the seriousness of each case and the resources of the sponsors. All seven families of spirits must be acknowledged, to varying degrees, in the music.
Drums (tbel, pl. tbola) have a relatively limited ceremonial role. The qarāqe ib are indispensable for trance-dancing, and the principal instrument is a three-string lute known as gunibrī, sintīr or hajhūj. The gunibrī has a semi-spiked construction, with a skin-covered body, sliding leather tuning rings and a sistrum-like sound modifier (sersāl) at the end of the neck (fig.5). The morphology and the playing technique of the gunibrī are connected to West African instruments such as the khalam and kontingo, as well as to the American banjo.
With the advent of recordings, radio and motorized transport in the 1930s, performers in Morocco were able to reach an audience beyond their village or neighbourhood, or the distance they could travel on foot. Although the first recordings were of traditional regional styles, musicians soon developed new popular styles based on short, light Arabic songs, accompanied by a small ensemble of ‘ūd, violin, and drums. One of the earliest popular stars was Houcine Slaoui, who wrote and performed songs of satirical social commentary from the 1940s to the 1960s. Among these were ‘Amr lu sibsi (about marijuana smoking), Al-kas hlu (about drinking alcohol) and Hadi ras’ek (about trickery in the marketplace). Among his most famous songs was l-Amīrikān, about the effects of the American invasion of North Africa during World War II. Slaoui also experimented with a variety of different instruments in his ensembles, including the clarinet and piano.
During the 1950s and 60s, the commercial music market in Morocco was dominated by popular stars from Egypt (Umm Kulthum and Farīd al-Atrash), France (Johnny Halliday) and the United States (James Brown). The most successful local recording artists, like Abdelhadi Belkhayat and Abdelwahab Doukkali were, for the most part, imitators of Egyptian film style or, more rarely, French pop and American soul. Traditional and regional music was mostly relegated to low-powered radio stations and limited programming time. Commercial recordings of traditional music seldom sold more than a few thousand copies, mostly among emigrant labourers nostalgic for the sounds of home. Recordings were, in any case, largely superfluous, since live performances were so readily available.
In late 1971 a new wave of commercial music appeared in Morocco when several actors formed a group called Nāss al-Ghiwān (The People of Love, or People of Temptation). Within a few months another group, Jīl Jilāla (Generation of Jilāla), had split off from the first and overtaken it in popularity. The two groups rapidly became the most successful in Morocco. Soon after, they launched successful tours in the rest of North Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
Their strongest historical influence came from religious brotherhoods, such as the ‘Aissāwa, Jilāla and Gnawa. A second source of inspiration was European and American counter-culture. Many popular musicians visited Morocco during these years, and the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin even maintained houses there. As early as the 1960s, groups of Gnawa from Tangier, Marrakesh and Essaouria collaborated with well-known jazz and popular musicians, such as Randy Weston, Don Cherry, Pharoah Sanders and Led Zeppelin, and fusion experiments were organized by a variety of Moroccan artists. Since the 1970s, early music specialists in Spain and, more recently, flamenco musicians have been collaborating with Moroccan Andalusian musicians, exploring the ties between the musics of the two countries.
Nāss al-Ghiwān and Jīl Jilāla did not work directly with Western musicians, but they were able to fuse aspects of Western performance with a repertory based on traditional Moroccan songs drawn from varied sources around the country. The resulting synthesis was undoubtedly Moroccan, without being tied to any specific regional or ethnic group. The identity of the groups was open to interpretation on the part of each observer. Like Morocco itself, they could seem by turns conservative and revolutionary, traditional and modern, Arab, African and Western.
To carry the melodic lead, Nāss al-Ghiwān and many of their emulators chose the banjo, while Jīl Jilāla used the Greek bouzouki. The groups also included a Gnawa gunibrī and a set of traditional drums. Some of the drums, like the bendīr and ta‘arija, have traditionally been used in a variety of different contexts, both sacred and secular; others, like the herrazi (a large, single-headed, cylindrical drum) and tbila (a pair of pottery kettle drums), have been used primarily in the ceremonies of religious associations. The connection to the religious tarīqa was enhanced by Jīl Jilāla's occasional use of the Gnawa qarāqib. The musicians also used novel playing techniques on their instruments; they played tbila, normally beaten with sticks, with their hands.
Nāss al-Ghiwān continues to attract audiences of enthusiastic young fans, but they have not moved far beyond their repertory of the 1970s. Nāss al-Ghiwān and Jīl Jilāla inspired hundreds of similar groups, most of them amateur and short-lived. Their success created new interest in certain forms of traditional music. Later groups, such as the Tashlhit-speaking Usman, began to introduce electric guitars and synthesizers. More importantly, the influence of Nāss al-Ghiwān and similar groups has extended beyond Morocco, particularly to the city of Oran (Wahran) in western Algeria. Young singers adapted the model of the Moroccan groups, drawing on local popular styles accompanied by a mix of traditional and electric instruments, to create the genre Rai (see also Algeria, §1(v)).
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