Moroccan hip hop

Moroccan rap music is a Moroccan musical style related to rap and hip hop culture. It nevertheless stand out from American rap or French rap by its locality, by its proximity of Moroccan youth (by the themes it treats), and also by the relative influence it undergo from Moroccan culture.

Chronology

Moroccan's hip-hop and urban culture history dates back to the mid-1980s, when, after hip-hop's emergence in Western culture, Moroccan immigrant youth in Europe transferred the new musical style back to Morocco upon their returns home. Of course, it took some years for Moroccan rappers to find a comfortable balance between traditional Moroccan music and Western rap, and it took time for them to find the right linguistic style, which ended up being a combination of Classical Arabic, Moroccan Arabic (darija), French, and English, but the result of experimentation and growth was a musical genre that could truly be identified not as simply "rap," but specifically "Moroccan rap." After its explosion in Morocco's music scene, Moroccan rap underwent the same critiques as Western rap had been subjected to: it was too decadent, it was uncouth, it was the music of thugs and of rough streets. It was slowly accepted, however, by the general public and the media. The democratization of Morocco, beginning in the late 1990s, especially helped to expand acceptance of the new musical genre.

Rap and urban music have since gained a following in major urban centers in Morocco. Moroccan rap, a favorite genre for many Moroccans, especially Moroccan youth, speaks out and protests on social and political issues.

Documentary films about hip hop in Morocco

• I Love Hip Hop In Morocco is a 2006 American documentary by Joshua Asen and Jennifer Needleman that chronicles the creative process and efforts of Moroccan hip-hop groups and singers to secure funding and launch Morocco's first-ever hip hop concert of the same name [1]. The film features artists based primarily in the cities of Casablanca, Meknes and Marrakesh.

• Morocco Street Life is the title of the first documentary one devoted to the Moroccan scene hip-hop, carried out by Dj Key, one of the precursors of the kind.

See also

Morocco portal

Hip hop portal

• Moroccan music
• Arabic hip hop
• Culture of Morocco

References

External links

• I Love Hip Hop in Morocco. Award-winning documentary film about the first Hip Hop festival in Morocco (2007).

• (French) RAP marocain: Quand la Jeunesse se rebelle, un dossier à propos du rap marocain paru dans Le Journal Hebdomadaire.
• (French) RAP marocain: Rap marocain, portail musical qui répertorie les musiques favorites des marocains.
• (French) Rap marocain sur Wikimusique - author Mario Scolas - GFDL