Finally! Some More Moroccan Music

Mehloun Out of the great diversity of moroccan traditional music, mehloun is probably the most authentic to the nation. Mehloun could be very vaguely (there’s more to it of course) described as traditional poetry put in music. Mehloun poets and musician, often illeterate, contributed to the transmission of our history by means of poetry and music and are the guardians our complex social traditional lives at the same time. Mehloun is an important art, it’s vital for the moroccan society to cherish it, educate about it and protect it from commercial damaging extreme simplification. Cultural heritage is a caleidoscope of symbols and trends born from the history of a nation. In Morocco, this translates in thousands of popular traditions based on true stories and legends, reality and imagination. But there’s more to cultural heritage for moroccan people. Moroccan people have the richest heritage of Africa, its cuisine, its clothes, its very diverse traditions from one region to the other… But we also have a rich heritage of poetry and story telling. Mehloun is the vehicule of this poetry and story telling heritage, Mehloun is the vehicule in which our heritage is transmitted from generation to generation. It’s our history book, but instead of being written, its sang in verse and melody. Mehloun poets and musician compose on all classical poetry themes. But their work shows the recurrence of 4 major themes which are faith and its multiple dimensions, joy/happiness with its ludic and witty aspects, social themes and last but not least political and historical events. Mehloun was never an intellectual art. Most of the great Mehloun artists were (and some still are) illeterate folks. But with the exodus of folk people to big modern town, this art came in contact with the intellectuals to whom it appealed greatly and who gave it new aspects, influenced both its poetry and music, enriching this art. At the same time, this art came in contact with commercialisation and mondialisation. Lots of moroccan think this is trivialising Mehloun and are concerned this highly important art is becoming more of an “empty entertainment”, designed to talk to our bodies (dance) rather than our minds, dismissing our souls in order to sell better. I share this concern myself. Here are two very different examples of Mehloun art. The first is a performance by the journalist Touria Hadraoui. You will notice the almost monotone melody, put to life by the witty poem. A woman is talking to her long time dear friend trying to convince her not to hold against her anger after a dispute, trying to lighten her mood so she speaks to her again. Here are translations of few of the verses. Of course they sound better in the morocan dialectic arabic language used in Mehloun than with my bad translation. But you have an idea of the theme of the poem. “Please answer me, sift that anger out from your heart” “Is there no peace in that heart of yours?” “Cool that burning, scalding heart of yours” “Relax those somber-looking eyebrows, cheer up those dropped cheeks…” You may have to hold the Ctrl key while you clic on the "Play" link. http://www.mondomix.com/fr/videos.php?artist_id=1100&reportage_id=2346 The secong example is a prime one for Mehloun being a “history keeper” of political and historical events. And at the same time it is a prime example of the trivialisation fo Mehloun art into something less classical and more commercial. Jil Jilala are considered the equivalent of the Beatles for moroccans. They’re very popular and greatly adored in morocco. I grew up listening to their numerous great success popular songs as my parents were very fond of them, and so do I. In this Gnawa tinted Mehloun song (gnawa music is so exhilirating and very easy to dance on, it was brilliant of Jil Jilala to use this music with their Mahloun style song), they basically state the moroccan ownership of occidental Sahara, at the time occupied by Spain. The song was reliesed in 1975, at the time of the Green March. It was the pacific march of above 30 thousand moroccans towards the most important town of the Occidental Sahara, Laayoune (this word used to name the town means “eyes”, it is important to tell it because of the lyrics of Jil Jilala song). This song became the second (unofficial) moroccan anthem, every moroccan knows its lyrics by heart, no moroccan can listen to it without feeling a great sense of patriotism and belonging to the country. It’s a bewildering song for us. “And the river is mine, Sir, and the river is mine For my country, Sir, for my country Laayoune are my eyes, as well as the Red River” (There’s a river in Sahara called “Red River”) I’ll go (march), with peace Allah, the Saints and the Q’ran are with us” You may have to hold the Ctrl key while you clic on the "Play" link. http://www.mondomix.com/fr/videos.php?artist_id=886&reportage_id=1782 There’s so much to say and discover about moroccan music. I’ll travel again in this rich subject on future posts… Enjoy !