It’s only rock ‘n’ roll

Desert Rock — Tinariwen brings rebel music out of the Southern Sahara

By Jeffrey Callen

A slow Hendrix blues riff, deep, rough and insistent, slashes through the aural space. Broken down and repeated, the opening riff is joined by the offbeat upstrokes of a second, trebly electric guitar establishing a shuffle counterpoint. A fast rap barely breaks through the sound of the guitars, becoming louder when it morphs into a sung chorus with backing vocals (three, maybe four words). About four minutes in, the guitars drop out and the song is stripped down: a fast rap over a loopy funk bass line, accompanied by handclaps and soft percussion. The offbeat guitar upstrokes return joined by an arpeggiated riff on a second guitar, then a lead guitar. The vocals become secondary as the guitars propel the song to its ending and the opening riff returns. While the description could fit a performance of an up-and-coming indie band at the Noise Pop festival later this month, (to read more click here for the East Bay Express article)

A couple of other recent pieces on Tinariwen in the New York Times and S.F. Bay Guardian

February 19, 2010
Categories: Genre, North African Music, Popular Music, Traditional Music, World Music . Tags: , , , , . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: 1 Comment

Abderrahim Askouri — Moroccan Pop Innovator

In 2002, I spent a year in Morocco researching the emerging alternative music scene in Casablanca. Most of my attention went to the creation of a new genre of  Moroccan music that soon carried the  label “fusion.” Heavily influenced by French fusion bands, such as Gnawa Diffusion, Moroccan fusion blended Moroccan genres (cha’abi, gnawa, houari…) with rock, rap, salsa (and other international–mostly Black Atlantic–genres). Fusion also built upon earlier musical blendings. One of the roots of fusion was the music of the ’70s, which included the folk revival that included bands such as Nass el Ghiwane. Less remembered were solo urban artists, such as Abderrahim Askouri, described to me as a “musician’s musician” from Hay Mohammadi in Casablanca who influenced Nass el Ghiwane and other folk revival artists and also Khaled who spent a couple of years refining his chops in the clubs of Casa before returning to Oran and becoming a rai superstar.

Record producer Maurice El Baz played me some Askouri tracks but despite an evening searching cassette shops in popular quartiers of Casa, I never obtained my own copy of Askouri’s work. I just stumbled upon a posting by Abdel Halim El Hachimi on his Tales of Bradistan on Abderrahim Askouri and had to pass it on. Now, I got to get a copy of the cd Abdel so luckily found.  A final note Abderrahim Askouri’s nephew Younes Askouri is a very talented singer-songwriter working in Casa today, a member of the 21st century fusion scene (YouTube clip below).

Abderrahim Askouri -- click on album cover to read the story

February 5, 2010
Categories: Genre, Moroccan Music, North African Music, Rai . Tags: , , , , . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: 3 Comments

Another interesting article on Rai (from Hawgblawg)

Another interesting article on Rai that dispels or at least “problematizes” some of the widely-accepted ideas about Rai as a genre (at least our conceptions of Rai in the West). I don’t agree with everything Ted (Swedenburg) writes but most of it is spot-on. From Ted’s Hawgblawg, which is always interesting and often provocative — check it out!

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Some Myths and Misconceptions about Rai Music

There have been few posts on this blog of late in part because I’m trying to focus on the manuscript for my book, Radio Interzone. Lately I’ve been working on the chapter on rai music, to be based in part on articles published previously, some with Joan Gross and David McMurray others on my own. (See the bibliography at the end.) Lately I’ve been reading or rereading a number of articles on rai, both journalistic and academic, gathered over the last three years or so. In the course of doing so I’ve noticed a number of myths and misconceptions, that keep being repeated, over and over, in the literature. I attempt to correct the record here, as best I can. Or maybe I should say, I attempt to problematize the truisms that circulate, endlessly, about rai. Some of what I write re-states what I/we have written before. (And I must admit, I/we are responsible for circulating some of the errors.)

1. Rai means “opinion” in Arabic. From this claim flows an understanding that the lyrics of rai convey the opinion of the singer, in a fairly straightforward and unmediated way. Such “opinion,” moreover, is for the most part, direct, and, by implication, oppositional.

Rai of course literally means “opinion” or point of view. But in this musical genre, the significance of the word is not so much its literal meaning but that it functions, in many songs, as a word or phrase like “oh yeah,” “yeah, yeah,” or “tell it like it is.” That is, it serves to emphasize whatever point is being made. (see Mazouzi, 269) [to read on click here].

January 18, 2010
Categories: Genre, North African Music, Popular Music, Rai . Tags: , . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: Leave a Comment

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