Rap Beyond Resistance : Staging Power in Contemporary Morocco 978-3-319-60183-0, 3319601830, 978-3-319-60182-3

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-ix
Introduction: The Straightjacket of Resistance (Cristina Moreno Almeida)....Pages 1-20
Deciphering Moroccan ‘Cool’ (Cristina Moreno Almeida)....Pages 21-50
Rap and the Revival of Patriotism (Cristina Moreno Almeida)....Pages 51-82
Branding Patriotism, Commodifying Resistance (Cristina Moreno Almeida)....Pages 83-112
Visual Representations of Power: Urban Spaces and Rooftops (Cristina Moreno Almeida)....Pages 113-143
Economies of Resistance (Cristina Moreno Almeida)....Pages 145-168
Back Matter ....Pages 169-181

Citation preview

Rap Beyond Resistance Staging Power in Contemporary Morocco Cristina Moreno Almeida

Pop Music, Culture and Identity

Pop Music, Culture and Identity Series Editors Steve Clark Graduate School Humanities and Sociology University of Tokyo Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan Tristanne Connolly Department of English St Jerome’s University Waterloo, Ontario, Canada Jason Whittaker School of English & Journalism University of Lincoln Lincoln, Lincolnshire, UK

Pop music lasts. A form all too often assumed to be transient, commercial and mass-cultural has proved itself durable, tenacious and continually evolving. As such, it has become a crucial component in defining various forms of identity (individual and collective) as influenced by nation, class, gender and historical period. “Pop Music, Culture and Identity” investigates how this enhanced status shapes the iconography of celebrity, provides an ever-expanding archive for generational memory and accelerates the impact of new technologies on performing, packaging and global marketing. The series gives particular emphasis to interdisciplinary approaches that go beyond musicology and seeks to validate the informed testimony of the fan alongside academic methodologies. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14537

Cristina Moreno Almeida

Rap Beyond Resistance Staging Power in Contemporary Morocco

Cristina Moreno Almeida Deparment of Digital Humanities King’s College London London, UK

Pop Music, Culture and Identity ISBN 978-3-319-60182-3 ISBN 978-3-319-60183-0  (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-60183-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017947725 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Mihajlo Maricic/EyeEm Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

This book owes much to the generosity of numerous rappers, graffiti artists, cultural actors, and rap fans throughout Morocco, as without their enthusiasm and help I would not have been able to complete it. Along the road, colleagues and friends at SOAS, LSE and King’s College London, in London, Spain, Morocco and elsewhere, have always been ready to share their time and thoughts, for which I am extremely grateful. I would like to express my immense gratitude to Dr Karima Laachir, who believed in this project since its conception and in my potential to pursue it. She has encouraged me throughout with patience, energy and passion, providing me with invaluable advice and suggestions while allowing me to strive for my own thoughts. I owe advances in my work also to the comments of Dr Ayman El-Desouki, as well as Dr Laudan Nooshin and Prof. Said Graiouid. Once I had conceptualized the book, Dr Shakuntala Banaji not only encouraged me towards finishing the manuscript, but her sharp critical eye pushed me to think deeper and beyond. Thank you Shaku! I cannot thank enough my good friend and colleague Dr Racha Chatta, for taking time to read thoroughly parts of the book and provide me with her insightful comments and overall support. I cannot fail to mention Dr Mònica Rius, who inspired me many years ago in Barcelona to pursue my path in academia. Her support has not lost its strength in spite of time and distance. Scholarships from Fundación La Caixa and Ouseley Memorial initially partially funded the thesis on which this book is based, and for these I am extremely v

vi  Acknowledgements

grateful. I am also especially grateful to the British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship Scheme for believing in my project and providing me with the support to elaborate Chap. 6 of the book. I owe much of my sanity during these seven years also to my friends Dr Vishal Vora, Samia Ben Tekaya, Jacqueline Lallave, Dr Maria Lopez De Cunha, who have helped me get through. I am deeply indebted to Natalia Hernández, Viviana González, Annie Greene and Dr Aula Hariri for our unfailingly profound conversations about this book and beyond. During my five years living in Morocco, my friendships with Amanda Ortíz, Paulina Gómez and Dr Salima Massouli became invaluable. I cannot thank Amanda enough for her constant love and generosity. In this long process, I am indebted also to my family in Gran Canaria and Casablanca, who have always been patient and understanding of the needs surrounding such a long and demanding endeavour. My mother Gloria has always inspired me to fight and work hard, cheering me up with words of encouragement and giving me strength to finish the work (¡gracias mamá!). I am also grateful to my brother Javier for his sense of humour, putting a smile on my face when I most needed it, and to my father Óscar for believing in me since the start. I would also like to thank my mother- and father-in-law, Aicha and Abdelhafid, for their much-needed support, love and care during the conception and writing of this book in Casablanca and later in London. Finally, I will never be able to thank enough my husband Omar, who has always been by my side, patient and positive during my many hours of distress, listening to my troubles and helping me in every possible way; I thank him for continuously inspiring me to do better with his infinite love and kindness.

Contents

1 Introduction: The Straightjacket of Resistance 1 2 Deciphering Moroccan ‘Cool’ 21 3 Rap and the Revival of Patriotism 51 4 Branding Patriotism, Commodifying Resistance 83 5 Visual Representations of Power: Urban Spaces and Rooftops 113 6 Economies of Resistance 145 Final Remarks 169 Appendix 173 Index 177

vii

List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2 Fig. 5.3 Fig. 5.4 Fig. 5.5

Logo of the association Matkich Bladi Snapshot of music video “F.Y.” (2012) by rapper Chaht Man Cartoon criticizing Festival Mawazine Cartoon presenting Don Bigg as a co-opted rapper Cover image of DBF Studios Poster of Machri9 al Anwar in Casablanca 2013 Poster of Festival L’Boulevard 2013

66 105 117 121 124 131 133

ix

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: The Straightjacket of Resistance

In December 2010, after Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, popular public demonstrations of discontent with long-time rulers and dysfunctional systems of governance quickly propagated across countries in North Africa, the Middle East, as well as Europe and beyond. At the time, many media outlets channelled protesters’ grief through hip hop culture, especially featuring rap music and graffiti. From Morocco to Syria, from Bahrain to Tunisia, many of the stories that appeared in international media, such as The Guardian or Le Monde, highlighted the significance of rappers and graffiti artists in conveying the message of the protests.1 The French newspaper Le Monde (January 11, 2011) in an article entitled “Le rap, porte-parole de la jeunesse tunisienne”2 (Rap, the Spokesperson of Tunisian Youth) granted political weight to rappers by claiming they were not only expressing youth concerns, but were being closely monitored. In the midst of this social and political upheaval that affected many countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, commentators claimed rappers became the ‘voices of the revolution’. Ilyana Ovshieva asserted that rap “emerged as one of the focal modes of youthful self-expression during the epochal uprising” (Ovshieva 2013: 37); and Nouri Gana argued that “In a world that is currently shot through with insurrection and revolt, rap music is not only a part and parcel of the exponential curve of change sweeping across, among others, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and Morocco but also an indispensable feature of Arab culture itself or, at least, of what will have become of Arab culture in © The Author(s) 2017 C. Moreno Almeida, Rap Beyond Resistance, Pop Music, Culture and Identity, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-60183-0_1

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the aftermath of its on-going transformation by rap and hip hop” (Gana 2012: 25). Despite the optimism with which commentators established rap as the music genre that was to transform the region’s3 social and political ecology, these narratives often overlooked the fact that not all rappers supported the protests. In Morocco the largest demonstrations took place on February 20, 2011 throughout the country, setting the foundations of the February 20 (F20) movement. Despite the large number of protesters in the demonstrations that day, well-known rapper Don Bigg openly criticized the protests and the movement. The rapper’s disapproval was soon voiced through a song called “Mabghitch” (2011) released in April followed by a music video in June that same year. In this song, Don Bigg—who had been praised until that point for his crude lyrics denouncing social inequalities—depicted the newly formed pro-democracy movement as the Hizb al Himar, or Party of Donkeys suggesting those protesting were being brainwashed by a few searching to destroy the country. Don Bigg was not alone in showing contempt towards the uprisings. In early 2011, in the midst of the demonstration in Tahrir Square, the renowned Egyptian pop singer Tamer Hosny invited protesters to leave the square where they had gathered for days demanding the until then president Mubarak to step down.4 In the case of Hosny, people in the square perceived this act with hostility and when, days later, Hosny visited the square to apologise, he was attacked and required aid from the military to escape. The social and political context in Egypt and Morocco were already very different. While in Egypt protest movements had for some time been campaigning against Mubarak, the new king in Morocco had brought a narrative of change encapsulated in the promise of a more democratic country that many believed in. Among the many differences between Tamer Hosny and Don Bigg is also the music genre they adhere to. Hosny’s political stand was not surprising because there is precedent in the region of pop and traditional music singers of siding with power. A good example is Syrian pop singer Assala, who has songs praising the former president and father of the current ruler Bashar al-Assad. Indeed, many singers have played an invaluable role in developing national consciousness and encouraging unity and patriotic feelings, as is the case with the well-known and much adored Umm Kulthum.5 Contrary to Arabic traditional and pop music, rap music has raised expectations of a different performance linked to the accepted notion that rap, especially

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beyond the United States, Canada and Western Europe, is there to ‘resist’ power (Baker 2005: 371). In this sense, rap is among those music genres and youth subcultures that are perceived, in the words of John Street, as “almost exclusively political” (Street 2012: 43). Dave Laing differentiates two types of music in relation to protest. According to Laing, ‘protest music’ explicitly expresses opposition identifying a specific issue or enemy, while in ‘music of resistance’ such expressions remain concealed or opaque (Laing 2003: 345). In both cases the performer is considered to have a clear intention of being political, but political circumstances may force the artist to choose one form of expression or the other. Despite drawing on the work of Laing, John Street claims that during the Tunisian uprising protesters sang songs of resistance and not protest music because “they gave voice to their defiance and helped to constitute their identity as people [but these] were not, formally at least, ‘protest songs’” (Street 2012: 44). The target during the uprising was clear—the state embodied by its authoritarian ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, as was its message—the fall of the authoritarian rule. Both of these were transmitted through the popular chant AlShab Yurid Isqat An-Nizam (People Want the Fall of the System), heard constantly during the uprisings not only in Tunisia, but also throughout many countries in the region. Moreover, the rap song by El General called “Rais Lebled” (President of the Country, 2010) reportedly representing the Tunisian voice was a direct message against the country’s ruler, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Following Laing, “Rais Lebled” is therefore clearly a protest song with an explicit political agenda. The fact that Street uses Tunisian music during the uprisings as an example of resistance music speaks to the need for a better understanding of the nuances and layers of meanings when using the notion of ‘resistance’. Despite Laing and Street’s efforts, clear-cut distinctions of ‘protest music’ and ‘music of resistance’ prove to be as challenging as determining what is political in music and what is not. Explicitly political lyrics that identify an enemy may well be interpreted as patriotic songs siding with dominant political narratives as much as patriotic and oppositional. As Chap. 3 in this book will discuss, a trend of patriotic rap has emerged in Morocco concerned with fighting the enemies of the country, whoever these may be. While these songs fit into Street and Laing’s definition of ‘protest music’, some commentators and rappers in Morocco have expressed their discontent with unnecessary exhibitions of patriotism, especially when Morocco is considered a stable country. One needs

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to consider, however, that at a time when rappers in Morocco were looked at with mistrust and considered symbols of Western imperialism, patriotic rap allowed this music genre and culture a smoother entrance to the Moroccan cultural field by speaking a language familiar to many. On the other hand, as explored in Chap. 4, with time some rappers have capitalized on patriotic music which grants them symbolic and economic recognition without any significant attempt to creatively contribute to the development of the Moroccan rap scene. In this endeavour, I argue, an in-depth knowledge of the social, political, economic and cultural dimensions of the local context is essential. Without an understanding of national and local intricacies, it is not possible to seriously consider the works of music and politics. Chapter 5 provides snapshots of local tensions between rappers and cultural stakeholders in the ways they all use urban spaces in Morocco to represent political power. Moreover, this chapter engages with the idea that urban spaces are used to promote different agendas. This locality is also highlighted in Chap. 6, which narrates an account of the works of local economies of music. Following the aim of the book, the chapter looks at alternative ways in which rappers are able to monetize their music away from the control of the main patrons of the arts in the country. Resisting the elites’ control of the music field is an example of dynamics of resistance, but one that has remained unnoticed in commentators’ accounts in favour of explicit political lyrics that may have other layers of meaning. The aim of this book, therefore, is not only to move away from stagnant resistance versus co-option narratives by shedding light on the many ways in which music can also be political, but also to reveal the limits and limitations of essentializing rap as music of resistance.

Beyond the Hidden Transcripts In Domination and the Arts of Resistance (1990), James Scott examines the dynamics of cultural and political domination by exploring the power relations between dominant groups and those resisting them, referring respectively to ‘public’ and ‘hidden transcripts’. Subordinate groups, Scott claims, create hidden transcripts to criticize power behind the back of dominant groups. Hidden transcripts are thus disguised within everyday lives as coded messages that challenge or reshape dominant narratives. While hidden transcripts are part of the discourses that take place offstage far from the site of power, public transcripts refer to the open

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interaction between power and its subordinates. Scott asserts, however, that subversive messages are often expressed openly, albeit in a disguised form, making it possible to interpret jokes, songs, tales and rumours as ways of denouncing power. Many studies on popular music have drawn on Scott’s framework to highlight the power of music to convey hidden messages of dissent. This is the case of Dangerous Crossroads (Lipsitz 1994), China’s New Voices (Baranovitch 2003), the introduction to the edited volume Music and the Play of Power in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia (Nooshin 2009) and Playing Music, Performing Resistance (Lozano 2012). In the same vein, Dave Laing (2003) turns to Scott in establishing the distinction between ‘protest music’ and ‘music of resistance’, as mentioned above. Scholars therefore agree that the idiosyncrasy of music allows it to express hidden and subversive messages in a more public forum, allowing people to engage with and react to them (Allen 2004: 5–6). The idea of coded messages is also picked up by rap music and hip hop culture scholars who set the grounds in establishing rap as a form of social and political criticism. In Black Noise (1994), Tricia Rose’s seminal work on US rap, the author argues that rap music is in many ways (although not always) a hidden transcript in its use of masked speech and cultural codes, which remark on and/or challenge power inequalities (Rose 1994: 100). Specifically, Rose argues that rap is engaged symbolically and ideologically in a fight against institutions and groups that oppress African Americans. However, as Rose suggests, considering our contemporary context where cultural production is mass-mediated and mass-distributed, “rap’s resistive transcripts are articulated and acted out in both hidden and public domains, making them highly visible, yet difficult to contain and confine” (Rose 1994: 101). In this sense, while rap voices social critique and criticism, it also enjoys a central position in mass-mediated popular culture and therefore the public arena. This apparent contradictory characteristic, hidden but public, is best expressed in Chuck D’s description of rap as the “CNN of Black People”, a phrase that symbolically presents the music genre as the voice of the excluded youth (Chang 2000: 31). Due to this connection with social struggle and criticism, rap is often framed as a rebellious art form, or as Halifu Osumare puts it, “an in-your-face rebellious youth style that challenges class inequities wherever it expresses itself on the globe” (Osumare 2007: 71). More generally, scholars agree that rap frequently highlights issues

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of ‘race’, poverty, oppression, feelings of despair and social exclusion (Osumare 2007: 33; Rose 1994: 3; Terkourafi 2010: 2). Studies on hip hop culture in general, and rap music in particular, need not only to look at rap as the voice of the excluded but also to place it within the market (mainly the music industry, but also the movie industry, clothing and sportswear, advertising campaigns and so forth) and the media. As Laudan Nooshin argues, “there has been a tendency to seek an understanding of popular music’s social meanings through a singular metaphor—what might be called ‘music as resistance’—to the exclusion of other possible meanings” (Nooshin 2017: 166). In this vein, we cannot forget that hip hop culture is not only about expressing dissent, but is also evidence of the triumph of world capitalism, with rappers in Kenya—or for that matter Morocco—wearing Nike and Adidas clothes (Chang 2000: 25). Analysis of the interesting relationship between hip hop, rap and the market allows researchers to reveal “the often-confusing, self-contradictory, mutually exploiting, stereotype-generating morass that constitutes the capitalist-driven world of global pop culture” (Osumare 2007: 150). A cultural studies approach to rap music, therefore, should include not only textual analysis and audience reception, but also the production and political economy of culture (Kellner 2001: 404), often excluded in studies on MENA cultural scenes. The study of rap music in the MENA region entails an understanding of the diverse fields that inform youth cultural production without limiting it to responses to capital-P Politics. This includes elements of place and time, social and political events, as well as taking into account the place of rap within the music market (globally and nationally), the role of the state, the media (local and global), academia, and the position of artists and audiences. In this sense, resistance is related not only to the Political discourses, but to politics with a small ‘p’ that focus on everyday stories that would otherwise be lost. Politics should be seen not only as “the political structures of power and political institutions and regimes, but [also] as deeply embedded in social life, personal freedoms, in the family and home as well as in the public space” (Laachir and Talajooy 2012: 10). We can therefore find instances of resistance against the authority of parents or certain social norms that are not necessarily imposed by the state as well as narratives of resistance that aim to use rebellion as a commercial product. Understanding that acts of resistance can be part of a marketing strategy also in the MENA region

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is essential, but is something that is rarely questioned by commentators who embrace Political lyrics as an unquestionable act of resistance.

Fetishizing Rap and Resistance Acts, cultures, or songs of resistance are continually celebrated without an entire understanding of the social, political and economic implications of such cultural production. As Lila Abu-Lughod’s seminal paper “The Romance of Resistance” (1990) argued more than 25 years ago, there is a tendency to look for forms of resistance and resisters. AbuLughod criticizes herself and others for being obsessively preoccupied with finding symbols of resistance and resisters. As she puts it, scholars have not only looked for these instances but idealized them, and “read all forms of resistance as signs of ineffectiveness of systems of power and of the resilience and creativity of the human spirit in its refusal to be dominated” (Abu-Lughod 1990: 40–41). As she argues, these readings restrain our ability to further question the working of power and also to differentiate between forms of resistance. In this sense, Kellner (2001: 400) agrees in denouncing the celebration of resistance that does not distinguish between different types and forms. Forces that are interpreted as emancipatory, such as violence, can also be interpreted as dominant in macho culture or problematic in conflict resolution (Kellner 2001: 400). Resistance therefore must be examined as the relationships between political actors or systems of power which are reshaped and change over time (Tripp 2013: 8). The nature of these political actors or systems of power, however, remains to be delineated and defined: “But power is more complex, more widespread and more integrated into the fabric of society than this representation would suggest” (Tripp 2013: 13). Therefore, drawing from Michel Foucault, power, as resistance, is far from a rigid structure or institution (Foucault 1990: 93). Competing narratives that struggle to dominate the cultural field embody the problems of oversimplifying, celebrating and focusing on acts of resistance. In Morocco, the main contestants are the state headed by the monarchy, Islamist movements, and groups of the liberal secular civil society. The political agendas of these three groups both overlap and diverge. To start with, as in other countries of the MENA region, the Moroccan state uses the civil society as a tool to legitimate the states’ liberalization projects which contributes in turn to maintaining the

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ruler’s central authority (Daadaoui 2011: 111). Therefore, even if liberal secular groups in particular act as oppositional groups, they share with the state, not un-problematically, similar aims in their cultural projects. They both aim “to enhance the image of Morocco as an authentic yet modern, tolerant, and diverse country” (Graiouid and Belghazi 2013: 262). Moreover, many liberal secular sections of the civil society either function under the state’s protection or are ‘forced’ to align with the state against a perceived Islamist danger (Cavatorta 2009: 141). Islamist movements have also pushed to shape the cultural field. The PJD (Party of Justice and Development, or in Arabic ‘Adāla wa Tanmiya) is the largest legalized Islamist political party of Morocco. Although in its early days its founding principles did not support the monarchy, the PJD has been largely co-opted and has recognized the primacy of the king. Nevertheless, the tension remains between this party that won the parliamentary elections in 2011 and 2016, the monarchy, and groups within the secular civil society. In this context, opposition and dominant movements become blurred. The PJD has intervened in the cultural field through the promotion of what they call al fan annaẓīf or “clean art”, in an effort to promote cultural expression in line with Islamic precepts. While Islamist groups and liberal seculars share a role as leading opposition groups in the country, they are far from forming a constructive unity, following similar cases across the MENA region (Cavatorta 2009: 138). The struggle to gain power among these groups is reflected in many rappers’ cultural production. While liberal secular groups invite to events rappers who do not comply with Islamic precepts (for example, who show alcohol in their music videos), Islamic groups prefer rappers who focus on preaching Islam, while the state promotes rappers with a patriotic discourse. Rappers, however, are not mere puppets working under the strings of these political groups. On the contrary, they acknowledge these political tensions and, as this books shows, use them to their advantage. Considering this setting, a framework based on binary categories does not capture the complexities of the Moroccan cultural field. Reductionist binaries have also been questioned by prominent scholars such as Tricia Rose (1994, 2008), Paul Gilroy (1994, 2000, 2004), and Geoffrey Baker (2005). Gilroy has been vocal in criticizing scholars who romanticize rap music by considering rappers ‘authentically’ rebellious. He argues that most critics essentialize rap as a subculture rebelling against the system, while rap is actually dominated by

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“revolutionary conservatism” (Gilroy 2000: 205–206). According to Gilroy, while rap can be seen as revolutionary in its presentation of violence as principal in social and political interactions, it is also conservative in its rigid organization of gender roles. In her book Hip Hop Wars (2008), Rose elaborates on this and other perceptions to critically deconstruct dominant narratives of hip hop culture. Rose and Gilroy’s insights inspire this book to go beyond the ways in which researchers and the media have over-romanticized rap music as an eminently revolutionary genre, essentializing rap and youth as angry subjects, and going a step further into understanding rap outside the US. In this endeavour, Baker’s call to reconsider “accepted notions of ‘global’ rap as a ‘resistant’ music … and of state involvement in popular music as a purely negative, controlling influence” (Baker 2005: 372) is still relevant in MENA’s rap. Instead of focusing on the ways in which Moroccan rappers resist systems of power embodied by the state, this book sheds light on the types of relationship between different narratives and forms of power.

The Trap of ‘Conscious’ Rap In the tendency to look for acts of resistance, commentators have shown a predilection to define ‘global’ rap as the heir of US ‘political’ or ‘conscious’ rap since its prominence between 1987 and 1994. Since then, this binary has created expectations that rap should focus on “socially conscious discourse” (Watkins 2005: 21) in opposition to “commercial rap” music (see Spady et al. 1999). Rap in North Africa and the Middle East is no exception to the global tendency. In the case of Morocco, this disposition is clear in two chapters of the edited collection Contemporary Morocco (Maddy-Weitzman and Zisenwine 2013) where Boum and Ben-Layashi respectively homogenize and categorize rappers as a uniform group of “new rebels” (Boum 2013: 174) and “revolutionaries and ‘anarchists’ hip-hop youngsters” (Ben-Layashi 2013: 151). In particular Ben-Layashi articulates the image of revolutionary youth in terms of looks and language. Rap audiences are described by Ben-Layashi as “modern and sometimes anarchist looks (black-t-shirts, sunglasses, tattoos, baseball hats)”, attributing young Moroccans with a highly complex political and philosophical consciousness based solely on their physical appearance. These descriptions of artists’ and practitioners’ looks fall flat in reflecting on broader academic debates around hip hop culture, in particular those that position hip hop culture in juxtaposition

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with capitalism (Chang 2000; Osumare 2007), but also within the dynamics of the Moroccan cultural field. Beyond looks, Ben-Layashi also presents the use of raw language and hard words in his description of revolutionaries. As an example he attributes the use of this language to the Moroccan rap group H-Kayne. Indeed, there are rappers in Morocco whose language is socially perceived as crude, vulgar, remaining faithful to everyday language use among Moroccan youth. Yet, H-Kayne is not one of them. In an interview published for the documentary I Love Hip Hop in Morocco (Assen 2007), one of H-Kayne’s members claims how they are not able to use vulgar language in their songs as it is not socially acceptable in Morocco. Rapper Don Bigg, however, proved them wrong when he released his first solo album Mgharba Tal Mout (Moroccans til Death) in 2006 using swearwords and street Darija.6 In spite of the fact that some have constructed these rappers as new rebels, both H-Kayne and Don Bigg have also been accused of siding with the state in times of social and political turmoil. A good versus bad, engaged versus apolitical, resistant versus co-opted conceptual framework uncovers the fact that an oversimplified search for evidence of resistance is highly problematic even when commentators are aware of local politics. In this sense, analyses that do not fully engage with wider meanings of artistic production fall short in producing a nuanced depiction of the dynamics of local rap scenes. Another example of distorted narratives of rappers that demonstrate the anxieties of locating and proving evidence of forms of resistance within the MENA region is an article published in Al-Jazeera.7 In this article, scholar Mark LeVine illustrates the story of a young man from Casablanca jailed in 2011. The article presents this man as a rapper and praises him for his connection to the pro-democracy F20 movement. Although commentators had not shown any previous interest in this rapper’s music, once Mouad Belghouat—whose artistic name is L7a9ed (pronounced Lhaqed and meaning ‘the enraged’)—was arrested, he rapidly became featured in many media accounts as “one of the best Arab world rappers” according to LeVine, a “political rap star” (National Public Radio January 6, 2012),8 or a poet (France 24 April 5, 2012).9 In these accounts, the reception and impact of L7a9ed’s work in Moroccan audiences is neglected together with the rapper’s artistry (punchlines, flow, lyrics, rhymes etc.) in favour of his personal story as a dissenting artist. The relationship with the state is what is here celebrated. These accounts consider the mere act of producing a rap song

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and being persecuted for it an act of resistance. In an attempt to describe L7a9ed’s significance, LeVine refers to L7a9ed’s music as “highly politicised”. Following this approach, what does it mean to be ‘politicised’ in countries, such as Cuba, where the ‘conscious’ discourse overlaps with that delivered by the state? How do we relate to resistance when that is the language of power? Furthermore, how do we study ‘politicised’ rap when resistance has become a cliché? We need to question what any categorization of lyrics as political actually entails, not only for the commentator and the producer (i.e. the rapper), but also for the audience. In this sense, we should consider that while some artists are not comfortable categorizing their music solely as political, others welcome this description as what Nooshin calls an “exoticizing strategy” (Nooshin 2017: 185). Different meanings will surely bring to the surface competing debates including, but not exclusively on, the role of different rappers and their work in the Moroccan rap scene. By examining the different and often contradictory layers of meaning embedded in an artistic production we can elaborate a comprehensive understanding of a particular cultural scene. These layers include local and global signifiers, social diversity, the meaning of public spaces, and so on, all missed when culture is fixed within perfectly built patterns of political contention.

A Turn to Aesthetics In Artificial Hells (2012), Claire Bishop claims that the social component of participatory art is celebrated over artistic experiences, and thus discussions on art remain excluded in favour of the social task of the work of art. Bishop’s fundamental aim is to dismantle the emphasis on the artistic process of production, arguing against the celebration of “an ‘ethical’ working progress as a goal itself” when considering the significance of artistic expression (Eschenburg 2014: 176). As she rhetorically asks, “If an artists’ process (production) isn’t visible in the work, or legible to the viewer, then does it matter? Does the recipe affect the meaning of the work? Or are we paying too much attention to process at the expense of considering a project’s larger cultural meaning?” (Eschenburg 2014: 176). In the case of ‘global’ rap, commentators tend to focus on the producer, that is, the rappers, and the function their music and their persona plays in the national political field. Less is said, however, on how their work is received and ‘decoded’ (Hall 1980). Morever, Bishop’s claim suggests a broader look into a work of art beyond its ‘ethics’ or function.

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Discussions on cultural practices and production, including hip hop culture, often offer functionalist explanations for its significance. These functions may be political or pedagogical, normally connected to political protest where rappers are the ‘voice of the people’ or to educational initiatives. Rap is therefore a ‘tool’: a tool for social control, a tool for self-expression, a tool for education, a tool of resistance, and so on. Without neglecting the idea that culture can serve as a ‘tool’, limiting it to a function hides the varied, multilayered and complex role that cultural production plays in the region, which is different from country to country, from urban to rural areas, and across class, gender, religions and so forth. But mostly, functionalist explanations hide the fact that many produce and listen to rap music because of the emotional experience. Whether this experience is determined by local tastes or global massmediated culture serving the interests of cultural industries, emotions and aesthetics are an intrinsic part of rap music and hip hop culture. Although cultural studies as a point of departure seems to be distanced from discussions on aesthetics, Rita Felski argues that it is often taken for granted that cultural studies is a synonym of ideology critique and that its aim is to deny “the truth of art in favor of the truth of politics” (Felski 2005: 30). As Felski claims, cultural studies is as much about content and ideology as about form and pleasure (Felski 2005: 32). In this sense, it has been argued that non-Western music is often discussed in less complex terms: by praising its politics despite its interesting aesthetics, or complimenting its aesthetic significance regardless of its uninteresting politics (Feld 1995: 96). Frederic Jameson argues that the reason for this is that non-Western texts are often read as national allegories, “particularly when their forms develop out of predominantly western machineries of representation, such as the novel” (Jameson 1986: 69). Global rap is therefore often read in this sense when texts are narrating personal stories. Even if texts need to be read as part of the ‘socio-political’, the emotional connections that rap songs can spark with audiences are significant in bestowing these texts and artists with further meanings. Furthermore, artists across the region wish to be regarded as artists and not solely as a political voice, and their cultural production not only as ‘protest’ culture but also as a work of art. In a region often framed as being on a continuous road to democracy or authoritarianism, artists fight against imposed political consciousness. In her research on Palestinian rappers, Polly Withers (2016) has gathered examples of how Palestinian artists refused to be reduced to only being ‘a Palestinian’.

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The multilayered and complex subjectivity of these artists, Withers argues, is further reduced to their national identity when these artists are promoted outside their local context as this serves well as a marketing strategy. Palestinian rap, and its meaning within Palestine, “requires attending to more than the issues of struggle and politics” (Swedenburg 2013: 29). Culture industries and artists know about the power of being marketed as a dissident artist. Many capitalize on these marketing strategies that profit from the appeal of listening in many European and North American cities ‘to young non-Westerners fighting against the evil powers of undemocratic barbaric regimes’. The ways in which rappers use this orientalist gaze of culture industries to their advantage is an exciting yet underresearched use of politics and resistance. Ultimately, aesthetics and emotions were an important part of the daily conversations on rap during more than two years of fieldwork and over five years of living in Morocco. Throughout the seven years devoted to the research of this genre in the MENA region, audiences always showed a disposition to discuss aesthetics when talking about their favourite artists, rather than their politics. Young rap fans commented on the artistry of rappers in rhyming and delivering punchlines, on their flow skills, their sense of humour, their ‘authenticity’ or ‘fakeness’, their beats and myriad discussions on who is the best rapper and who is not. Although scholars do not like to address these discussions (with the exception of the edited volume Bad Music (Washburne and Derno 2013)), there are constant and never-ending negotiations on what constitutes a good Moroccan rapper. Of course, Political lyrics or lack thereof often trigger these debates, but not uniquely. Much of the aesthetics is negotiated by other means such as the quality of the beat, having a certain type of voice, the calibre of music videos, the clothes and general image of the rapper, or on the contrary sounding and looking trashy to portray a more ‘street’, ‘underground’ and homemade product. Although aesthetics is not the focus of this book, Moroccan rap’s aesthetics and their politics inform many of the arguments providing a better understanding of different meanings of this cultural production.

Within or Beyond Resistance? The key issue in this discussion is how we formulate our approach: should we work within a limited meaning of resistance and argue for other analytical categories that include ideas of resistance and co-option

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but also other frameworks; or should we broaden the meaning of resistance to include other ways in which artists are politically opposing systems of power? Both are problematic. While the former essentializes resistance, the latter may stretch its meaning to such an extent that the term can end up void of any solid signification. My aim in this book is to engage with its meanings while finding its limits. In rooting for broadening the meanings of resistance, this book offers alternative ways in which to search for acts of resistance using the Moroccan music field as a case study. These acts are not necessarily moments of opposition to a certain power but to forces that prevent rappers, singers or musicians in general carrying out their work. The role of the state is therefore crucial, but rap is not necessarily analysed in contention with it. The aim is not to deny the importance of resistance but to find alternative ways to look at it. Previous work on the ways in which rap and music can be ‘resistant’ is of great value, but we now need to build on this important body of work, broaden and challenge the ways in which we theorize and shape these narratives and these music genres. Challenging dominant narratives is certainly significant, but defining rap as a response to power downplays the ability of artists to imagine and create their own new narratives. While rap music certainly serves to fight ‘the power’, rappers in Morocco have also used it to embody, shape and gain ‘power’, be it political or economic, social or symbolic. Looking at Moroccan rap through a magnifying glass sheds light on the politics behind the notion of ‘resistance’ at the same time as attesting the lack of interest for the politics of music that does not respond to the dissent versus power dynamic. In this sense, rap is not a mere ‘tool’ of resistance, but a creative expression of hip hop culture chosen by many Moroccans to aesthetically convey personal, local and national histories, to be part of the public sphere, to feed their own egos, to express love or hate, to develop a career in the music industry, to have fun, and also, but not exclusively, to resist dominant political, cultural or economic discourses.

A Note on Language All the songs in this book are sung in Darija. Darija is frequently described as ‘Moroccan Arabic’, or simply as ‘Moroccan’ as expressed in an editorial in the magazine TelQuel (June 17, 2006). Although the majority of words in Darija come from Arabic, it also contains words from diverse origins including Tamazight, French and Spanish, all of

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them comprising a common language with its own variants in Morocco. The transcriptions and translations of the lyrics are basic literal translations meant to convey the meaning to the reader, not comprehensive translations. For the transcription of Arabic I follow two systems, one for Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and a different one for Moroccan Arabic or Darija. For MSA I follow the American Library Association and the Library of Congress system. However, in the transcription of texts in Darija, I follow the alphanumeric Latinized Arabic widely used in Arabic speaking countries by young people (Aboelezz 2012: 48). This system does not follow the scholarly transcriptions of classical Arabic, as it combines numbers and letters. This facilitates the adaptation of regional specificities of the language by employing common characters available on any computer keyboard (as opposed to complicated transliteration systems that use special symbols). In particular, Moroccan rappers often use the alphanumeric characters to write their names, such as rapper L3arbe from Zan9a Flow or L7a9ed (the Arabic transcription would be L’arbe, Zanqa Flow, and Lḥaqed). By employing numbers for nonexistent consonants in English, this system allows words to resemble their local sound in a simpler manner than scholarly transliteration. The decision to use this system and not the common Arabic transliteration system is related to the clarity that it provides in showing the differences of Darija versus MSA. In Morocco, the main changes of this system are in the following Arabic letters: the hamza is written with the number 2, the ḥā’ with 7, the ‘ayn with 3, and qāf with 9. I therefore reproduce the names of Moroccan rappers in the way in which they spell them on their album covers or their official social websites. Although rappers are often not consistent in spelling their names, I limit here to only one spelling. I use this transcription system as a form of respect to the authors’ choice of transliteration of their names while at the same time using a system of writing widely used and understood by Arabic-speaking youth in various media outlets. Rappers and Moroccan youth have mastered this system and also scholars working on Darija and Moroccan youth. Here again, I use the alphanumeric Latinized Arabic and not the Arabic standard transliteration. Although this transcription system originated for online communication, there is increasing evidence that this is no longer the case. Mariam Aboelezz (2010, 2012) provides evidence of handwritten texts using this transcription in Cairo and in Egyptian magazines. The fact that these transliterations of names and lyrics appear on the cover of their albums proves that this system is not

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exclusively used online. This transliteration system has extended to social media, advertisements, some literary works (for example some works of the writers Youssouf Amine Elalamy, Mohamed Berrada, Youssef Fadel and Mohamed Elkhadiri),10 and articles in the press, namely in the magazine Nichane, which was wholly written in Darija but folded in 2010 due to an advertisers’ boycott coordinated by the ONA/SNI group whose main shareholder is the Moroccan royal family.11

Limits and Limitations This book investigates Moroccan rap in its locality and complexity as well as in its relationship to society, politics and the global market, circulation and consumption while avoiding the trap of presenting resistance versus co-option as a simple binary. For this reason, it focuses exclusively on rappers who have emerged in the Moroccan cultural field since rap music started to be promoted after the Casablanca terrorist attacks on May 16, 2003. On this day, 12 men armed with bombs attacked a fivestar hotel, a Spanish restaurant and a Jewish community centre in the centre of Casablanca, the economic capital of the country.12 Since this event, rappers have gained momentum in actively participating in public cultural events, including music festivals, TV and radio shows, advertisements in the state’s aims to promote the country as ‘modern’ and liberal and counter the ‘threat’ of radical Islamist groups. These rappers include the groups H-Kayne and Fnaïre, and rappers Don Bigg, Mobydick, Chaht Man and Muslim. I also look at single songs of groups such as Rwapa Crew despite their limited impact within the rap scene. Finally, I explore the work of young rappers who belong to the new generation of Moroccan rappers, mainly rapper Dizzy DROS and Shayfeen, in order to establish a broader perspective. In delving into the musical works of these diverse artists, this book presents the complexities of the rap scene and urban youth culture in Morocco. Absent from this book are Moroccan female rappers, mainly artists such as Widad, now member of the fusion group N3rdistan, Soultana and Tendresse. The initial plan was to dedicate a chapter to female rappers focusing on power dynamics from a gender studies perspective, but the need for a larger study on this issue, including a comparative study of female rappers in other countries of the MENA region, soon became clear so this chapter was not included after all. The case for such a decision includes the fact that after Soultana and Tendresse released one single each dealing with women’s lives in Morocco in 2010, both of them had not produced more music by the

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time the main research work of this book concluded at the end of 2013. Therefore, a future project will focus on not only their music production but also the lack thereof. In this vein, this research must consider how these two rappers have gained voice outside Morocco with such a small music production, and whether there are similar cases in other countries of the region and beyond. Also absent are some rappers who are a significant part of the Moroccan rap scene but were not active in the time this research was carried out. These include Aminoffice, who is often quoted as one of the first rappers in Morocco, and much of the work of Thug Gang, and also many newcomers who have become well known in the rap scene since the end of my fieldwork.

Notes





1. See The Guardian (February 27, 2011; http://www.guardian. co.uk/music/2011/feb/27/egypt-tunisia-music-protests [Accessed May 6, 2016]), http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2011/01/11/lerap-porte-parole-de-la-jeunesse-tunisienne_1463638_3212.html [May 6, 2016]. And also Time (February 15, 2011; http://www.time.com/ time/world/article/0,8599,2049456,00.html [Accessed May 6, 2016]), Time Magazine (February 17, 2011; http://content.time.com/time/ magazine/article/0,9171,2050022,00.html [Accessed May 6, 2016]), BBC News (July 24, 2011; http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middleeast-14146243? [Accessed May 6, 2016]), The Nation (August 27, 2011; http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/music/a-song-to-start-something-the-arab-springs-greatest-hits [Accessed May 6, 2016]). 2. http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2011/01/11/le-rap-porteparole-de-la-jeunesse-tunisienne_1463638_3212.html [May 6, 2016]. 3. The ‘region’ throughout this book refers to the countries that belong to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The term MENA itself is not geographic but conveys colonial geopolitical strategies. Some have suggested alternative terms such as North Africa and West Asia (NAWA) or Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA), considered as more appropriate ways of decolonizing the hegemonic baggage of the term MENA. Others argue that despite its origins, it has now been appropriated and used to transmit solidarity and empathy (Tripp 2013: 17). 4. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/tamer-hosny-egypt-answerjustin-timberlake-attacked-demonstrators-cairo-tahrir-square-article-1.135916 [May 20, 2016].

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5. Born in Egypt, Umm Kulthum became famous in the 1920s as a singer, songwriter and actress. She is one of the most influential performers of the twentieth century in the Arabic-speaking world. 6. Darija is the language spoken in Morocco. 7. h t t p : / / w w w. a l j a z e e r a . c o m / i n d e p t h / o p i n i o n / 2 0 1 2 / 06/2012626133253231919.html [Accessed May 27, 2016]. 8.  http://www.npr.org/2012/01/06/144798285/rappers-imprisonmenttests-moroccan-reforms [Accessed May 8, 2016]. 9. http://www.france24.com/fr/20120425-justice-maroc-rappeur-mouadbelghouat-rancune-liberte-expression-mouvement-20-fevrier [May 8, 2016]. 10. http://www.medias24.com/CULTURE-LOISIRS/pdf8824-Un-prixlitteraire-recompensera-la-darija.html [Accessed March 9, 2017]. 11.  http://www.yabiladi.com/articles/details/3366/nichane-victime-d-uncrime-publicitaire.html [Accessed March 9, 2017]. 12. These events and their social and political consequences are further discussed in Chap. 2.

References Aboelezz, M. 2010. A Latinised Arabic for All? Issues of Representation, Purpose and Audience. In Romanization of Arabic Names. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Arabic Transliteration Standard: Challenges and Solutions, Abu Dhabi, UAE, ed. S. Izwaini, 100–110. Abu Dhabi: Ministry of Culture, Youth and Community Development. Aboelezz, M. 2012. ‘We are Young. We are Trendy. Buy our Product!’ The Use of Latinized Arabic in Printed Edited Magazines in Egypt. United Academics Journal of Social Sciences (September/October) 2: 47–72. Abu-Lughod, L. 1990. The Romance of Resistance: Tracing Transformations of Power Through Bedouin Women. American Ethnologist 17 (1): 41–55. Allen, L. 2004. Music and Politics in Africa. Social Dynamics 30 (2): 1–19. Assen, J. 2007. I Love Hip Hop in Morocco. US: Rizz Production. Baker, G. 2005. ¡Hip Hop, Revolución! Nationalizing Rap in Cuba. Ethnomusicology 49 (3): 368–402. Baranovitch, N. 2003. China’s New Voices: Popular Music, Ethnicity, Gender, and Politics, 1978–1997. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ben-Layashi. S. 2013. Feet on the Earth, Head in the Clouds: What do Moroccan Youths Dream of? In Contemporary Morocco: State, Politics and Society under Mohammed VI, ed. B. Maddy-Weitzman and D. Zisenwine, 141–160. Abingdon: Routledge. Bishop, C. 2012. Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship. London: Verso Books.

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Boum, A. 2013. Youth, Political Activism and the Festivalization of Hip-Hop Music in Morocco. In Contemporary Morocco: State, Politics and Society Under Mohammed VI, ed. B. Maddy-Weitzman and D. Zisenwine, 161–177. Abingdon: Routledge. Cavatorta, F. 2009. Divided They Stand, Divided They Fail’: Opposition Politics in Morocco’. Democratization 16 (1): 137–156. Chang, J. 2000. Born in Fire: A Hip-Hop Odyssey. UNESCO the Courier July/ August, 53: 23–25. Daadaoui, M. 2011. Moroccan Monarchy and the Islamist Challenge: Maintaining Makhzen Power. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Eschenburg, M. 2014. Artificial Hells: A Conversation with Claire Bishop. Contemporaneity: Historical Presence in Visual Culture 3: 174–178. Feld, S. 1995. From Schizophonia to Schismogenesis: The Discourse and Practice of World Music and World Beat. In The Traffic in Culture: Refiguring Art and Anthropology, Berkeley, ed. G.E. Marcus and F.R. Myers, 96–126. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Felski, R. 2005. The Role of Aesthetics in Cultural Studies. In The Aesthetics of Cultural Studies, ed. M. Bérubé. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Foucault, M. 1990. The History of Sexuality. New York: Vintage. Gana, N. 2012. Rap and Revolt in the Arab World. Social Text 30 (4 113): 25–53. Gilroy, P. 1994. ‘After the Love has Gone’: Bio-Politics and Etho-Poetics in the Black Public Sphere. Public Culture 7: 49–76. Gilroy, P. 2000. Between Camps: Nations, Culture and the Allure of Race. London: Routledge. Gilroy, P. 2004. It’s a Family Affair. In That’s the Joint! The Hip-Hop Studies Reader, ed. M. Forman and M.A. Neal, 87–94. New York: Routledge. Graiouid, S., and T. Belghazi. 2013. Cultural Production and Cultural Patronage in Morocco: The State, the Islamists, and the Field of Culture. Journal of African Cultural Studies 25 (3): 261–274. Hall, S. 1980. Encoding/Decoding. In Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972–1979, ed. S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe et al., 117–127. Florence, KY: Routledge. Jameson, F. 1986. Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism. Social Text 15: 65–88. Kellner, D. 2001. Cultural Studies and Social Theory: A Critical Intervention. In Handbook of Social Theory, ed. G. Ritzer and B. Smart, 395–309. London: Sage. Laachir, K., and Talajooy, S. 2012. Introduction. In Resistance in Contemporary Middle Eastern Cultures: Literature, Cinema and Music, ed. K. Laachir and S. Talajooy, 1–12, New York: Routledge. Laing, D. 2003. Resistance and Protest. Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World Part 1 Media, Industry, Society. London and New York: Continuum International Publishing Group.

20  C. Moreno Almeida Lipsitz, G. 1994. Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism and the Poetics of Place. London: Verso Books. Lozano, N. 2012. Playing Music, Performing Resistance: The Dynamics of Resistance Through Music in the Colombian South Pacific Coast. Berlin: Lit Verlag. Maddy-Weitzman, B., and D. Zisenwine (eds.). 2013. Contemporary Morocco: State, Politics and Society Under Mohammmed VI. Abingdon: Routledge. Nooshin, L. 2009. Prelude: Power and the Play of Music. In Music and the Play of Power in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, ed. L. Nooshin, 1–32. Farnham: Ashgate. Nooshin, L. 2017. Whose Liberation? Iranian Popular Music and the Fetishisation of Resistance. Popular Communication 15 (3): 163–191. Available from 10.1080/15405702.2017.1328601. Osumare, H. 2007. The Africanist Aesthetic in Global Hip-Hop: Power Moves. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Ovshieva, I. 2013. Stomping for Tunisia: Liberation, Identity and Dignity in Tunisian Rap Music. Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 6 (1): 36–54. Rose, T. 1994. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Rose, T. 2008. The Hip-Hop Wars: What we Talk About When we Talk About Hip-hop and Why it Matters. New York: Civitas Books. Scott, J.C. 1990. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven: Yale University Press. Spady, J.G., C.G. Lee, and H.S. Alim (eds.). 1999. Street Conscious Rap. Philadelphia: Black History Museum. Street, J. 2012. Music and Politics. Cambridge: Polity. Swedenburg, T. 2013. Palestinian Rap: Against the Struggle Paradigm. In Popular Culture in the Middle East: A Postcolonial Outlook, ed. W. El Hamamsy and M. Soliman, 17–32, New York: Routledge. Terkourafi, M. 2010. Introduction: A Fresh Look at Some Old Questions. The Languages of Global Hip Hop, 1–18. London: Continuum International Publishing Group. Tripp, C. 2013. The Power and the People: Paths of Resistance in the Middle East. New York: Cambridge University Press. Washburne, C.J., and M. Derno (eds.). 2013. Bad Music: The Music We Love to Hate. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. Watkins, S.C. 2005. Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Withers, P. 2016. I’m not a Palestinian Musician, I’m a Musician Who Happens to be Palestinian: Negotianting Nationalisms in Youth Popular Music in Palestine. Cambridge: University of Cambridge.

CHAPTER 2

Deciphering Moroccan ‘Cool’

In 1999, with a new king heading the state, an opportunity opened up for the monarchy and Moroccan powerful elites to leave behind the ‘Lead Years’1 and reimagine the new Morocco. The novelty translated into an engagement with the country’s road to democracy, human rights and addressing social inequality under the guidance of King Mohammed VI. The young king’s attempt to position the country as an exception in the region soon materialized in satisfying, at least partially, feminist demands for a new family code in 2004, acknowledging the until then overlooked Amazigh identity with the inauguration of the Royal Institute for Amazigh Culture (IRCAM) in 2002, and launching the National Development Initiative (INDH) to fight poverty. These changes also affected the cultural scene, particularly music, with a booming of music festivals in the 2000s. This new spirit of change, however, was fractured in 2003 when terrorist attacks in Casablanca shocked the country and questioned the king’s strength as a political leader. That same year, the state’s arrest of over a dozen metal heads accused of satanism mobilized large numbers of urban youth. In light of this situation, the expanding state-funded music scene conceived rappers as a better fit to embody Morocco’s newly crafted image as a ‘modern’, youthful, religiously moderate and liberal country. This chapter lays the ground to decipher the main cultural, political and economic ecologies of the Moroccan music scene in the 2000s. It provides the necessary overview to understand the sudden state and elites’ interest in the mid-2000s for a rap scene already extant in Morocco for over a decade. This chapter © The Author(s) 2017 C. Moreno Almeida, Rap Beyond Resistance, Pop Music, Culture and Identity, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-60183-0_2

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looks critically at discourses where the Moroccan state and urban elites capitalize on rap as a symbol of coolness and youthfulness to counteract the effects of growing opposing groups deemed as too radical—Islamism or heavy metal—and thus get back on track in becoming an ‘exceptional’ model of democratization, moderation, and progress for the rest of the MENA region.

Sketches of the New Morocco Morocco is located both geographically and culturally in North Africa, between Europe, the Middle East, and the American continent. This location makes it a particularly unique context in which to explore a diverse range of social, political, historical and artistic events. The idea of uniqueness is also fed from within, where the state markets Morocco as an exceptional country in the MENA region in a process of democratization under the leadership and guidance of the monarchy (Bouasria 2013: 37; Maghraoui 2011: 681). As a postcolonial nation, Morocco has been dominated by the absolute power of the monarchy sustained by the state headed by the Makhzen. The Makhzen is a socio-political entity that emerged in the twelfth century after the separation of the Moroccan sultans from Abbasid rule in Baghdad. At the time, it was responsible for gathering the taxes (religious taxes, money reserves, arms and ammunition) and sending them to the treasury of the umma (the Islamic community). Over time, the Makhzen went from being officials in charge of the government’s treasury, to a group that accumulated a great deal of power. Until 19122 during the pre-colonial period, the areas controlled by the Sultan were referred to as bled al makhzen, while the rebellious regions, mainly inhabited by Amazigh tribes, the indigenous inhabitants of North Africa, were the bled es siba. The period of French and Spanish rule in Morocco (1912–1956) unified pre-colonial divisions and in the process strengthened the authority of the Makhzen, thus helping to construct what would become postcolonial Morocco (Daadaouik 2011: 46, 54). The term Makhzen, used nowadays as synonym of the state, alludes to a central authority formed by political and economic ruling elites, which provides the country’s administrative structure, legal framework and military manpower to increase the monarchy’s authority (Daadaoui 2011: 46; Maghraoui 2001: 12; Sater 2010: 3). The institution of the Makhzen serves to absorb and deflect direct criticism from the king, allowing him to be presented as ‘independent’ of the state and thus

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increasing his authority. Although the media often employs the Arabic word dawla (state) to refer to the state, the word Makhzen is still used by people in everyday language as part of the local lexicon to refer to power (Bourqia 1999: 244). The Makhzen has been a powerful voice in articulating, both internally and internationally, the narrative of development, reform and change ensuring the monarchy’s hegemonic position within Morocco’s complex political and economic systems. Reforms began in the early 1980s with the transformation of postcolonial Morocco into a neoliberal state. French rule had shifted power from interior cities of Fez and Marrakech to the coastal area by making Rabat the administrative capital and Casablanca the economic capital. This shift stimulated an intense human rural–urban migration that together with rapid population growth (from 12 to 31 million between 1961–2003) and a governmental programme of privatization foregrounded what became Morocco’s contemporary economic problems (Joffé 2009: 158). Uprisings broke out in Moroccan urban centres in 1981 after the government announced a rise in food prices caused by a soaring economic crisis. In September 1983, the Moroccan government resorted to the International Monetary Fund as a result of its rise in foreign debt. The programme of privatization began the same year, and affected the already high unemployment rates, particularly in urban areas. By the end of the 1980s, King Hassan II expressed his desire to privatize all public companies, an aim that was realized in a 1989 law. At the beginning of the 1990s, the European Union promoted the same sort of privatization policy via neoliberal economic reforms in the MENA region as part of a strategy to counter economic migration into Europe by stimulating domestic employment. Concealed by the language of the free market, these neoliberal reforms conveyed new forms of patronage and exploitation “in which the state apparatus changed its modes of intervention but still played a crucial role” (Bogaert 2013: 223). Privatization in Morocco implied that the kings, Hassan II and later Mohammed VI, became the country’s most significant businessmen owning the majority of shares in Omnium Nord Africaine (ONA), merged with the Société Nationale d’Investissement (SNI) since 2010, the most important private holding in the country. The 1990s brought social and political reforms with two constitutional revisions, in 1992 and 1996, and a slight liberalization of the press. The preamble of the 1992 constitution declared Morocco’s respect for human rights as universally recognized and also set the

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grounds for implementation of the alternance, which came in during the 1996 constitutional reform by relegating everyday politics to the prime minister and political parties. Alternance meant that after the 1996 constitution the power had to be alternated between the two major political coalitions of the central-right and central-left. However, control over the ministries of the interior, foreign affairs, justice and Islamic affairs remained in the hands of the king. King Hassan II’s commitment to alternance helped the monarchy shape Morocco’s political landscape as a ‘truly’ parliamentary democracy (Storm 2007: 120). Although the government of alternance brought hope for political liberalization, in reality, political pluralism strengthened the role of the king as the supreme arbiter (Maghraoui 2011: 683). In this sense, Morocco’s monarchy has proven to be extremely flexible in ensuring its survival while maintaining absolute power (Joffé 2009: 152). With the enthronement of the new king Mohammed VI in 1999, political and social reforms continued alongside the narrative of democratization and change. One important long-demanded reform was the implementation of a new family code or Moudawwana, approved in 2004. The new code has improved the legal status of Moroccan women, but did not completely fulfil the demands of feminist groups. In particular, complaints voiced the failure of family judges to apply the laws and the fact that many women, especially in rural areas, remain largely unaware of their legal rights under the new laws. This reform is also perceived as part of King Mohammed VI’s aim to capitalize on women’s ‘rights’ to promote the country in tune with Western concepts of ‘democracy’ and ‘modernity’3 (Kozma 2003: 127; Sater 2010: 81), as well as a strategy to counter the growing Islamist opposition (Cavatorta and Durac 2011: 63–64). The passing of this code marked a rupture with Hassan II’s authoritarian rule, a rupture that was even more apparent in the establishment of the Equity and Reconciliation Commission (IER) in 2004. This new committee was charged with investigating four decades of disappearances, arbitrary detentions, and cases of torture starting from the country’s independence to 1999. The IER, despite its flaws, was a unique initiative not only within Morocco, but also in the Arabic-speaking region (Kausch 2009: 167; Laachir 2013: 46). More changes occurred during the first years of the reign of Mohammed VI, including, as mentioned, the inauguration of the Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture (IRCAM) in 2002, which was intended to promote Amazigh identity in Morocco, as a way of counteracting the postcolonial

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neglect of the group. These new initiatives were designed to project the image of a reformer on Mohammed VI (Errihani 2013: 57; Linn 2011: 5). It is in this same vein that the National Development Initiative (INDH) can be seen, a programme to fight poverty and exclusion that took off in 2005. The programme helped shape Mohammed VI’s image as the ‘king of the poor’ and handicapped (Bouasria 2013: 38). Despite their number and scope, these economic, social and political reforms have been merely a cosmetic4 strategy to ensure the survival and indeed the sovereignty of the monarchy. Implementing cosmetic reforms allowed the monarchy to successfully navigate the rough waters of the MENA region’s uprisings in 2010–2011, also known as the ‘Arab Spring’. At this time, the region experienced a series of popular uprisings distinguished by their pro-democracy movements, which emerged rapidly in the different countries where it took hold. The long decades of oppressive, tyrannical and authoritarian rule of the postcolonial MENA countries were threatened by the people’s call for change. Morocco’s first demonstrations were limited and took place in solidarity with the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings. Soon, however, the demands for internal political changes were gathered in a call for national mobilization on February 20, 2011. The people, both organizing and participating in the protests, demanded social-economic justice, as well as condemning the systemic oppression and corruption in the country. The February 20 demonstrations, which engendered the February 20 Movement (F20), however, differed from the rest of the region in not questioning Morocco’s monarchic system of rule or King Mohammed VI’s position as leader. The F20 nevertheless posed a threat to the hegemonic power of the king with their continuous demonstrations throughout 2011. These were seen to have been successful when, on March 9, 2011, the king announced constitutional reforms including an increase in the prime minister’s powers, an independent judiciary, an increase in individual and collective liberties, and the recognition of Amazigh as an official language. Despite these promises, the process for constitutional reform demonstrated to be all but inclusive of diverse social and political organizations (Férnandez Molina 2011: 439). Protesters of the F20 openly manifested the new 2011 constitution’s weakness towards democratic changes by boycotting the referendum on July 1 and continuing the demonstrations. The Makhzen, however, succeeded in framing this constitutional reform as part of Morocco’s ‘exceptionalism’ in the region. From 2011 onwards, as a result of the

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Makhzen’s propaganda, internal conflicts, and organizational deficiencies, among other reasons, the F20 lost momentum.

Marginalized Urban Youth The cosmetic character of years of social, economic and political reforms had—perhaps predictably—not had any effect, as the country continues to suffer from high rates of poverty, unemployment and illiteracy. Removing the state from the economic process in particular was inefficient in reducing unemployment or poverty (Bahmad 2013: 17; Cohen and Jaidi 2006: 38; Joffé 2009: 160). Cohen and Jaidi (2006: 39) set at 5.3 million the number of individuals living in poverty out of a total population of over 30 million. Moreover, although industrialization of the urban milieus has created new middle classes, neoliberal economic changes put through in the 1980s and 1990s have not had any positive effect on rural areas that employ almost half of the labour sector (Sater 2010: 107). In fact, although privatization has encouraged the emergence of an entrepreneurial class, economic prosperity is limited to the economic elites and concentrated in the economic capital of Casablanca (Sater 2010: 106–107). There is still a significant gap between elites or upper classes and the underprivileged majority of the country’s ­population. This gap is highlighted in the fact that illiteracy remains one of the main social problems in Morocco. According to UNICEF and the World Bank, the literacy rate (meaning the people who can, with understanding, read and write a short, simple statement on their everyday life) for those over 15 years old is 67%.5 Yet, this statistic overlooks the great difference in literacy between schooling in urban and rural areas and the gender gap (Boutieri 2012: 444). Also problematic is the fact that the elites use these low literacy rates as an obstacle for democracy, therefore divesting the responsibility for lack of change from the monarchy (Maghraoui 2001: 17; 2011: 681). Widespread illiteracy rates and the social and economic problems that affect youth, particularly education but also unemployment and housing, have been hijacked by the Makhzen as part of the official discourse. In supporting youth’s struggles, the elites are able to neutralize the attacks of oppositional groups on the country’s social malaises. The state can thus be seen to co-opt young people’s cries of exclusion and despair, positioning them in the front row of the country’s concerns (Bourqia 1999: 251). Despite the

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fact that King Mohammed VI is considered an advocate of youth integration into society (Hegasy 2007: 31; Laachir 2013: 45), the bulk of Morocco’s population [30% aged from 15 to 29 (World Bank 2012)] still feels marginalized from the rest of society. Poverty and unemployment affect a large percentage of urban youth, with 30% of those educated past the primary level unemployed (Cohen and Jaidi 2006: 39). The 2012 World Bank report argues that youth have been largely marginalized from the country’s economic growth in the last decade. However, as the report also shows, the high level of unemployment only partially explains the exclusion of Moroccan youth from economic life: gender disparities, lack of education, and a failure of governmental programmes aiding job searches and placement have increased this exclusion. Feelings of failure and distress are increased by the fact that young men in particular are expected to become breadwinners and take care of their future families. According to the Human Development Report commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (2005), despite the fact that young people in Morocco constitute the largest part of the population, politicians have failed to integrate youth within society. With regard to the Makhzen’s concern with youth, these grievances may easily turn young people into a social pressure cooker and a threat to the monarchy’s hegemony, especially in times of unrest.

Terrorism, Heavy Metal and Islam On May 16, 2003 12 men who had strapped themselves with bombs attacked a five-star downtown hotel, a Spanish restaurant and a Jewish community centre in Casablanca. Shortly after the blasts, the Moroccan Interior Minister blamed the attacks on international terrorism, ­connecting the perpetrators with violent Islamist movements (Aboullouz 2011: 161). An alternative interpretation signalled poverty as a common denominator amongst the bombers, who were all residents of Sidi Moumen, the largest slum in Casablanca (Bahmad 2013; Beau and Graciet 2006). The targets for the bombing were not nationally strategic or political locations like tourist areas or government offices, rather they were “the closest site[s] associated with conspicuous consumption, immorality and foreigners in Casablanca itself” (Sater 2010: 79). The alternative readings of the attacks triggered a political debate on the country’s social disparity and the role of parties linked to political

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Islam which had been growing in followers such as the Justice and Development Party (PJD), which in turned also questioned the authority of the king. Beyond internal debates, the attacks and the government interpretation saw years of arbitrary arrests of those perceived as Islamists or linked to Islamist groups. The focus on Islamist radicalization allowed the state to capitalize on the attacks as a way to control not only the growing PJD but also the Justice and Charity group and other Salafī groups.6 In the 2002 national elections, the PJD had surprised the country by coming third after the Socialist Union and the nationalist Istiqlal Party (Howe 2005: 134). The electoral success of the PJD was particularly surprising because it was allowed to participate only after agreeing to present candidates in a limited number of districts to ensure it would not win the elections (Storm 2007: 88). However, the 2007 legislative elections did not see the same success for the PJD and the party did not earn enough votes to enter the government. The elections overall had a very low turnout, however, which was read as a lack of confidence in the political system, an idea shared by the Justice and Charity group (Cavatorta 2009: 146; Joffé 2009: 161; Kausch 2009: 169). After the tumultuous beginning of 2011, the PJD would win the parliamentary elections in November that same year, proving it was still a force to be reckoned with. Youth and the music scene also became main stakeholders in 2003. In February of that year, 14 young heavy metal musicians and fans sporting black t-shirts and owning guitars and/or skulls were arrested in Casablanca and accused of satanism. In her consideration of the incident Sonja Hegasy (2007: 29) argues that this case had an effect on how the youth of Morocco viewed the king’s legitimacy. Newspapers and magazines like TelQuel and L’Economiste, and even the less critical outlets generally aligned with the state such as Aujourd’hui le Maroc, perceived the government’s persecution and condemnation of the teens and the resulting prison sentences as a threat to freedom of expression.7 Wellknown journalist and former editor of TelQuel, Karim Boukhari wrote, some ten months after the event, that the news of the arrests had had the same effect on the country as a bomb (La Vie Économique December 5, 2003), and quickly took on a national dimension. In response, a collective of critical organizations8 began demanding the release of the teens (Callen 2006: 3). The newspaper L’Economiste (December 31, 2003) in its New Year’s Eve edition called the arrests and ensuing social mobilization against them something that was “never seen in the history

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of Morocco” and noted that “the case had mobilised a large section of the civil society. Without this reaction, the outcome of the trial would have been different.”9 Though the case of the teens has largely been left out of the debate on the terrorist attacks, which focuses on the country’s foreign policy, when considering the internal implications of the attacks and their aftermath the arrest of the metal music fans can also be read as oppression of the public display of youth’s discontent. The press also related the arrests to PJD’s entrance to the Moroccan parliament after the 2002 elections.10 As the defence lawyer for the metal heads argued, the trial was a “witchhunt aimed at pleasing Islamists” (The Guardian March 11, 2003).11 However, as Callen (2006: 3) shows, numerous Islamists were also arrested in the months prior to this case, which suggests that both events were efforts by the Makhzen to remove dissent from both sides: Islamists and young metal heads representing urban youth. So, in the end, the state pleased the Islamists with its condemnation of Western ‘satanic’ cultural invasion, but its arrest of people accused of being militant Islamists belied the real fight of the Makhzen against the rise of political Islam and violent Salafī movements nationally and internationally.

The End of ‘Exceptionalism’ The Moroccan ‘exception’ refers to the official narrative whereby Morocco is globally marketed as a religiously moderate country without religious terrorism, and guided by a monarchy in charge of securing the country’s future by pushing for democracy and political stability (Bouasria 2013: 37; Maghraoui 2011: 681). National and international media have articulated this as l’exception Marocaine (the Moroccan exception), and have reinforced the discourse of Morocco’s road to democracy and liberalism under the new king Mohammed VI (Laachir 2013: 45).12 Even if there have been changes connected to the new king, as argued above, reforms had started during the last years of King Hassan’s reign. Hassan II was aware that the political system was built around him as king, and therefore there was a danger of leaving a void in Morocco’s political system when the king died (Willis 2009: 232). The change of king in 1999 represented a moment of crisis that could endanger the continuity and legitimacy of the monarchy’s hegemonic power. This moment, however, was reimagined as a point of inflexion with regard to Hassan II and the ‘Lead Years’, that is, a moment

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of improvement from dark years of repression (Zisenwine 2010: 1). The new king was presented as the central figure responsible for guiding Morocco towards its future and guaranteeing its stability in the face of the incapability of political parties and the unpreparedness of the population for democratic change (for example due to the obstacle of illiteracy and the threat of Islamist movements) (Maghraoui 2011: 681). This narrative seeks to promote Morocco as an exceptional country within the Arabic-speaking region because of its moderate Islam, reforms in the domain of human rights, freedom of the press, and increasing democratization, thereby promoting the image of Morocco as a ‘modern’ country under the leadership of King Mohammed VI (Errihani 2013: 57). The strategic narrative of change to gain support for the new king, however, was seriously damaged after the terrorist attacks in Casablanca on May 16, 2003. This event harmed Morocco’s international stance as a ‘democratizing monarchy’ and its image as a country exempt from Islamic extremism and terrorism (Maghraoui 2009: 200): The Moroccan mosaic of religious tranquility has long been an image marketed to westerners and international donors to show them how the kingdom was fundamentally different from the Middle East hubs of radical Islamism and immune to the scourge of terrorism. (Bouasria 2013: 37)

After the attacks it became apparent that the country was not an exception to terrorism and that the militant Islamist phenomenon had taken root (Howe 2005: ix). Moreover, the terrorist attacks also meant that Morocco “was no longer protected by its political uniqueness behind the figure of the commander of the faithful” (Aboullouz 2011: 160). In other words, the threat was not only to the country, but also to the ability of the king as a political and religious leader to protect. The failure of the king to protect the nation is especially significant in Morocco as this is one of the symbols of power that grants the monarchy its legitimacy, as Chap. 3 will discuss. The idea of exceptionalism was reinforced after the 2003 events by implementing changes that were demanded by secular groups, such as the family code (see above). The reforms boosted the image of King Mohammed VI as a modernizing and liberal ruler and, at the same time, presented the monarchy as the only institution able to fulfil the demands of the secular sectors (Cavatorta and Dalmasso 2013: 128). Moreover, Mohammed VI used his status as ‘amīr al mu’minīn (commander of the

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faithful) to make significant reforms in religious law. The religious discourse favoured major Sufi groups such as Tariqa Boutchichiya to counter its attacks on Islamist movements (Bouasria 2013: 38). The reforms allowed the state not only to maintain the idea of Morocco’s exceptionalism after the watershed of the Casablanca bombings, but to perpetuate its strategy of dividing oppositional groups (Cavatorta 2009). The bombings thus fragmented civil society, as the Makhzen managed to divide the secular from Islamic groups in the field of human rights, preventing a broad consensus (Cavatorta and Dalmasso 2013: 129). The Makhzen tackled the rise of the PJD and the increasing support of Islamist movements by using cultural production to exhibit the narrative of exceptionalism. Belghazi and Graiouid (2013: 269) refer to the idea behind the king’s cultural patronage as the “modernist project”. This project is the cultural manifestation of the state’s Moroccan ‘exception’, and aims to support the king’s legitimacy together with religion and saintliness (Graiouid and Belghazi 2013: 269). Control over the cultural patronage system allows the Makhzen to contain the impact of the PJD and the Islamists as well as to present Morocco as a liberal and tolerant country by sponsoring and funding big music festivals and artists, in particular some Moroccan rappers.

Popular Music and National Identity National identities and nationalist ideologies play an important role in the formation and articulation of musical practices (Biddle and Knights 2007: 9; Bohlman 2010; Nooshin 2009: 3). It not only serves as a tool for social control, but also plays an important role in building and shaping identities (Bohlman 2010: 58; Folkestad 2002: 151). In the postcolonial cultural sphere, the Makhzen has established itself as the major cultural patron, funding and spearheading important cultural associations. As cultural patrons, the state capitalizes on music to promote its dominant idea of the nation as one of the main signifiers of identity in Morocco, together with Islam and Arabism. These have become symbols of legitimacy that enable the monarchy’s dominance of Moroccan political culture (see Chap. 3). The concern for national music in Morocco began during the colonial period (1912–1956) when French rule established the Laboratoire de Musique Marocaine for musicological research (Baldassarre 2003: 80). The main focus of the centre was on the Amazigh musical tradition, while disregarding the Arab music that was

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at the time popular among the Moroccan ruling class (Baldassarre 2003: 80–81). This project needs to be framed within the French policy of ‘divide and rule’ whereby the colonizers attempted to divide Moroccans, marginalizing the elites’ Arab identity and favouring Amazigh culture. After independence in 1956, state-controlled radio and television promoted its particular ideology through the direct patronage of composers and performers (Baldassarre 2003: 82; Callen 2006: 32–33; Mubarak cited in Fernández Parrilla and Islán Fernández 2009), a tendency that extends to rap music today. At the time, King Mohammed V ordered Egyptian artist Morsi Barakat to teach Moroccan musicians the principles of contemporary Arabic music, a genre based on Egyptian popular songs, which were imitated and disseminated in Morocco by Bouchaib El Bidaoui (Aydoun 2001: 145).13 Moroccan elites favoured this Egyptian genre, known as chanson moderne or musiqa asria, which had already crossed over to other Arabic-speaking countries thanks to records, radio and films endorsing a Pan-Arab ideology as well as the power of Egyptian media and its cultural dominance (Callen 2006: 32–33). At the same time, Moroccan singers like El Bidaoui and Houcine Slaoui14 became the pioneers of Moroccan modern popular music, focusing on genres such as Aita15 and Malhun16 (Baldassarre 2003: 83). Other music genres inspired by rock ‘n’ roll and soul music also emerged at this time (Massaia 2013: 40). The Moroccan popular music scene was then dominated by oriental Arab, patriotic, nationalist music (Mubarak cited in Fernández Parrilla and Islán Fernández 2009: 153). The Moroccan nationalist movement favoured music genres of Moroccan origin, specially the Nuba Istihlāl, a musical form of Moroccan Andalusi music, which was dedicated to expressing feelings towards independence. Artists were encouraged to dedicate their songs to patriotic concerns, developing a style called ughniya wataniya (patriotic song) (Baldassarre 2003: 82; Callen 2006: 33). In the case of Morocco and Palestine, in particular, patriotic songs were based on the national folkloric model that was also characteristic of countries in the Soviet Bloc (Baldassarre 2003: 83; Massad 2005: 179). Thematically, postcolonial patriotic songs in Morocco are similar to those in Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine, played by Umm Kulthum and Fairuz. Within the MENA region, Umm Kulthum and Fairuz’s songs sparked feelings of attachment to the nation (Lohman 2009; Massad 2005; Stone 2007; see also for example Zirbel 2000). Umm Kulthum’s role in developing an Egyptian national consciousness, unity and pride has been recognized as especially important (Lohman 2009; Zirbel 2000: 124).

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Despite the promotion of the chanson moderne which reproduced the monarchy’s symbols of legitimacy (Islam, Arabism, and Moroccan nationalism), during the 1970s new music trends emerged which dramatically changed the patriotic dominance. A new music genre inspired by Moroccan traditional popular music genres fused with international genres like rock appeared, creatively broadening and reimagining the boundaries of national Moroccan popular music. The Moroccan group Nass El Ghiwane played a main role in shaping the genre and greatly influenced music in the country, becoming a pillar of Moroccan contemporary culture (Aadnani 2006: 25). Nass El Ghiwane emerged from an artistic event in Essaouira in 1969, where musicians like Brian Jones from the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix established links with Moroccan artists, and connected with Moroccan music genres such as Gnawa17 (Baldassarre 2003: 86). The group members came from the poor neighbourhood of Hay Mohammadi in Casablanca, and embodied a new generation of politically engaged youth influenced by the Vietnam War, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the Argentinean revolutionary Che Guevara, and the Arab-Israel War in 1967 (Fernández Parrilla and Islán Fernández 2009: 151). The group reused traditional Moroccan stories from the halqa,18 as well as quatrains from the Moroccan Sufi poet Sidi Abderrahman el Majdoub. This was a significant development since both were performed in Darija, the spoken dialect of Morocco. Despite links with foreign groups, Nass El Ghiwane and other groups that followed this trend like Jil Jilala and Lamchahab remained rooted in the Moroccan tradition not only because of their lyrics and use of Darija, but because they based their repertoire on the musical instruments and music genres of a diversity of regions in the country. The aesthetics of fusion music have surfaced more recently in groups such as Hoba Hoba Spirit, Darga and Mazagan, as well as the rap crew Fnaïre, which formed in Marrakech at the beginning of the 2000s with a particular rap style that they called taqlidi rap (traditional rap), which mixes rap beats inspired by Moroccan traditional music. The nation remains a recurrent theme in contemporary Moroccan music, although the aesthetics of the music has changed since the initial promotion of Arabic and national traditional genres in postcolonial Morocco. In the Maghreb19 region, the theme of the bled (the country) is found not only in Andalusi and contemporary music inspired by Egyptian music but also in popular music genres like raï, originating in Algeria, cha’abi (which translates as ‘popular’), Moroccan fusion

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and rap. For example, the Algerian singer Souad Massi, Algerian raï singers like Cheb Khaled and Cheb Mami, and the Moroccan cha’abi singer Daoudi all have songs called “Bladi” (My Country). Particularly in Moroccan rap, this trend extends to rappers such as Don Bigg, H-Kayne, Casa System and Lhaqed whose songs titled “Bladi” confirm the continuous centrality of the nation in the country’s popular music.

The Birth of Moroccan Rap Moroccan rap albums were informally released as audiocassettes as early as the mid-1990s. They were not played on public media, however, since rap was seen as a foreign genre, evidence of American cultural imperialism, and thus an attack on Moroccan identity (Abkari 2008). The rap artist Muslim started writing lyrics during the 1990s in Tangiers and believed he was the only one rapping in the country (Muslim 2013, interview, June 26). Muslim created his first group in 1996, named Out Life. That same year, the group Double A, formed by rapper Aminoffice and Ahmad from the city of Salé, released their album Wakie (Reality), and in 1998 they came out with a second album M3ak Dima M3ak (With You, Always With You). Two years later, Muslim formed his second group Zan9a Flow and released the album Tanjawa Daba in 2001. Some rappers and DJs who emerged during this decade had, as I discovered during my fieldwork in Morocco (2011–2013), started out as breakdancers. Khalid Douache, also known as DJ Key, was a breakdancer until he discovered the art of DJing, as was Masta Flow (2011, interview, November 2) from the group Casa Crew, who told me he was a breaker until he got injured and decided to start rapping. During our interview, Muslim also connected the beginnings of the rap scene to breakdancing as it was in one of Tangiers’ meeting points for youth known as Dawliz where he discovered that other people met to do both. By the end of the 1990s, Hicham Abkari—director of the Mohammed VI Theatre in Casablanca, and former programmer of the Festival de Casablanca—had organized and recorded videos of rap crews and breakdancing battles in the popular neighbourhood of Hay Mohammadi, also home to Nass El Ghiwane, in Casablanca.20 Between the late 1990s and the beginning of the following decade, groups that have become extremely popular began to form in other urban centres of the country, like H-Kayne in Meknes, Fnaïre in Marrakech, the crew Thug Gang—the group of Wydad one of the first female rappers in the country—and Mafic C, led by rapper Don Bigg, both from Casablanca.

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Media outlets such as TelQuel, the radio station Hit Radio, as well as music festivals have played a key role in disseminating the work of Moroccan rappers. TelQuel is a weekly magazine written in French and known for pushing socio-political boundaries including criticism of the monarchy. The focus on this magazine is related not only to the fact that TelQuel frequently features Moroccan rappers’ work, but also because it is perceived as an outspoken and independent—from political parties and the state—oppositional source (Gershovich 2013; Hegasy 2007: 29; Orlando 2009: xviii; Storm 2007: 108). However, it is important to acknowledge that TelQuel’s staff have been criticized for belonging to the same elite the magazine attacks (Cohen and Jaidi 2006: 8). Hit Radio, one of the country’s most successful music radio stations amongst youth, benefited from the liberalization of the broadcasting sector in 2006. Since the start, Hit Radio has provided Moroccan rappers with support, organizing concerts, including rap songs in playlists, and routinely inviting rappers for interviews and to present their new work in live shows. While hip hop was taking root in Moroccan cities, at the turn of the millennium big music festivals began popping up in the country, coinciding with the coronation of the new king and bringing forward rappers as new figures in the national music scene. However, the first festival to include rappers was not state sponsored but was an independent project that aimed to provide a springboard for local groups engaged in contemporary music genres such heavy metal, fusion and rap. The first edition of this music festival now called L’Boulevard de Jeunes Musiciens took place in 1999 in Casablanca. Later, music festivals like the state-funded Mawazine Rhythms du Monde in Rabat, Festival de Casablanca and Festival Timitar in Agadir began in the mid-2000s to include Moroccan rappers on their yearly programmes, to the detriment of other genres like heavy metal. The result was a flourishing rap scene, a genre rapidly going from being despised to being praised. While rappers profited from the media, state and cultural stakeholders’ recognition of their art, this attention, I argue, was not without charge.

Cultural Patrons and Music Festivals Since 1999, most of the country’s big music festivals have been sponsored by the monarchy (Aït Mous and Wazif 2008: 295–296; for accounts of this relationship, see Belghazi 2006: 101). Although these festivals are promoted as being “under the high patronage of his majesty

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King Mohammed VI”, they are managed de facto through cultural associations supervised by figures close to the monarchy. For example, André Azoulay, adviser of Hassan II and Mohammed VI, is the patron of Festival d’Essaouira, and Mohammed Kabbaj, Mohammed VI’s adviser and wali of the Casablanca region, is the creator of the Fondation Esprit de Fès that participates in many festivals in Fez, including the Fez Festival of World Sacred Music. During the years that Kabbaj was wali of Casablanca, the authorities of the city21 initiated the Festival de Casablanca, with a focus on urban culture, to provide a forum for the cultural and artistic entertainment produced in the region (Aujourd’hui Le Maroc June 1, 2006). Though many festivals are state sponsored, it is the music festival Mawazine Rhythms du Monde, launched in 2002 in Rabat, that has particular significance due to the high profile of the artists invited to perform and its large budget. After the success of the first edition of the Festival de Casablanca in 2005, the Makhzen also wanted Rabat to have a major music festival and thus Mawazine started programming internationally known artists like Shakira, Kanye West and The Scorpions, among many others. Since then the festival has given the capital city of Rabat both national and international visibility each year contributing, in turn, to the centralization of political power in the capital city, which is otherwise considered a mere administrative centre. L’Boulevard festival, however, founded and supervised by Momo Merhari and Hicham Bahou—also directors of the association EACL’Boulevart—is not directly related to the state. In the years following its conception this festival encountered difficulties in obtaining public and private financial support (Callen 2006: 141). In 2009, EAC-L’Boulevart accepted a cheque from the king for two million dirhams (£143,000) so that the association could pay off part of its debts, an event that jeopardized its claim of being the only independent music festival in Morocco.22 The significance of music festivals is that they embody the hegemonic control of the Makhzen over the music scene. This becomes problematic because it means that the ruling elite is able to choose the artists that participate, and those to be excluded. Yet, the economic liberalization has translated into the emergence of new music patrons who perform as ‘independent’ agents with the approval of the state. In more recent years, the music scene has been dominated by a selected handful of cultural managers, with two main figureheads worth discussing: Younes Boumehdi, the founder and main shareholder of the private music station Hit Radio, and Brahim

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El Mazned, the artistic director of the Timitar Festival and director of Visa For Music, a professional music salon for the music of the MENA region. Both also head the HIBA Foundation, Boumehdi as its president and El Mazned as its director. Created in 2006 by King Mohammed VI’s initiative, the HIBA Foundation is a “non-profit organization working for the development and promotion of art in all its forms: Cinema, Music, Photography, Fashion and Design, Street Arts, Dance and Theatre.”23 Among other activities, in 2015 the foundation inaugurated its new recording studios on the outskirts of Casablanca with the aim of facilitating the production of music albums by Moroccan youth: “It aims to promote the professionalization of musicians and groups to contribute to trade and export of Moroccan creations towards international markets” (Aujourd’hui Le Maroc January 16, 2015).24 The global promotion of Moroccan music is also the aspiration of MoMex (Le Bureau Export de la musique marocaine, or the export office of Moroccan music) founded by El Mazned, which works in partnership with the Ministry of Culture and the HIBA Foundation. While these organizations present themselves as individual initiatives (Hit Radio, Visa for Music, MoMex) or non-profit foundations supported by the king (HIBA Foundation and HIBA Studio) the result is that the music scene in Morocco rests in the hands of a few. The fact that the music scene is managed through figures close to the king and a small circle of people allows tight control over the artists who are allowed to enter and subsist in this field. The repercussion for the music scene is massive, as the lack of diversity in cultural patrons has a negative impact on rappers and other musicians whose music does not cater to these elites’ vision of what ‘Moroccan music’ should be. While opening recording studios bestows these cultural stakeholders and the monarchy with the symbolic capital of supporting the country’s young musicians, it also allows them to hinder those who do not perform their vision from recording their work. After assisting at the inauguration in 2015 of the HIBA Studio, I asked several people close to the studio about the recording prices, which remain unclear and absent from their webpage.25 The initial answer I received was that the prices had not been set, even when the studios were already open. Later, one of the studio’s sound engineers reported that the price per day was 7000 dirhams (£550). In a country where the monthly minimum salary is around 3000 dirhams (£340), this is an unaffordable amount for the majority of Moroccan youth. As is the case with large music festivals, these institutions help to promote an image of a country engaged with its youth

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and its music scene, yet the state and a few ‘independent’ figureheads team up to remain in control of spaces of performance and the ability of musicians to economically subsist. There are a few cultural patrons who, despite not having expensive recording studios, have established affordable infrastructure in the form of rehearsal studios. Boultek managed by the association EACL’Boulevart, and L’Uzine established by the Touria and Abdelaziz Tazi Foundation, both in Casablanca, have rehearsal rooms available for any band that needs a space to perform. While Boultek offers rehearsal rooms for free, L’Uzine charges the symbolic amount of 200 dirhams (£15) per year to each band member for the right of booking a room any day of the week. Both of these cultural centres organize diverse activities across the arts allowing Moroccan young people a free space in which to gather, rehearse, and ultimately elaborate any artistic project they desire. Moreover, music events are regularly organized in both spaces. There is, however, a major problem with these and the aforementioned music hubs: their location. While young people of Casablanca and neighbouring towns may benefit from these infrastructures and networks, many young people are far from the Casablanca-Rabat axis and have difficulty accessing rehearsal or recording studios. One initiative from the British Council in Morocco, called ‘Pop-up Studio’, has been set up to bring free studio infrastructure to young musicians from rural areas in the form of artistic residency. Yet, foreign institutions are problematic per se, especially in the domain of rap music, as this genre is often used across the globe as a state tool for diplomacy to satisfy other countries’ agendas. The United States, France and Cuba have capitalized on rap music in different ways. While the US has used jazz and recently hip hop to improve its image abroad, in France, rappers functioned as a way to integrate Muslim minorities (Aidi 2011). Presenting a similar case to Morocco, through its patronage, the French government has been able to choose which Muslim artists to support and thus drive a particular discourse of inclusion (Aidi 2011: 35). Hisham Aidi uses the example of two French rappers, Abd Al Malik and Médine; while the former has developed a spiritual discourse based on Sufi Islam, the latter deploys a strong political discourse denouncing social exclusion and proclaiming the need to protest. Where Abd Al Malik receives official recognition from the Ministry of Culture, Médine is ignored in the mainstream media, pointing out the state’s use of rap culture to carry out particular political agendas (Aidi 2011: 35–36). The Cuban government

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is another example where through its organization and financing of an annual hip hop festival, as well as the establishment of the Cuban Rap Agency (Agencia Cubana de Rap) which employs an elite group of rappers, it has been able to dominate the scene (Baker 2005: 369; Miliani 2002: 767; Mitchell 2001: 7). Although Baker (2005: 393) asserts that the idea for the agency sprang from rappers who were frustrated at their lack of commercial success, he also admits the on-going debates about it being a tool to control Cuban rap. Moroccan rappers participate in many official festivals every year, and benefit from the symbolic and economic capital gained through participation. Rappers have thus been described as a device to promote the image of Morocco as an open and tolerant society (Aït Mous and Wazif 2008: 297; Boum 2012: 24). Because the state needs to manage and control feelings of exclusion experienced by youth, youth popular culture and especially hip hop has become an important method through which to impose a dominant political and social narrative. In this sense, the study of rap music in Morocco provides evidence of the power struggles or battlefield within the cultural field. Despite the fact that other music genres such as heavy metal and fusion have also become popular in Morocco and do ‘resist’ the state’s dominant political, economic and cultural narratives, rap in Morocco has reached youth, including artists, fans and audiences, but also broadcast, traditional and digital media, to a much greater extent within the last decade. Therefore, rap is unique in reflecting the tensions between youth, the music scene and the politics of the cultural field in Morocco.

Imagining the Moroccan ‘Cool’: The Nayda Movement Changes in the Moroccan cultural field which occurred following the accession of King Mohammed VI in 1999 were labelled as Nayda on the cover of the Moroccan Francophone weekly magazine TelQuel (June 10, 2006). The term Nayda comes from Moroccan Darija and means ‘stand up’ or ‘wake up’, and has been taken by the artistic movement as a call to free Moroccan youth of oppression: “In Morocco, the Nayda Movement translates [as the idea of] a libertarian [and] artistic revival, [that is] plural, [and] independent, [and that] works against conservatism. A breath of fresh air for Moroccan youth.”26 The TelQuel issue frames Nayda in similar terms, as a movement focused on language and the emergence of new artists in the public sphere: “Through the real talk authorized by Darija and the hymn to creativity that these underground talents

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bring, another Morocco is born” (TelQuel June 10, 2006). The documentary Casanayda (2007), directed by Farida Benlyazid and written by Dominique Caubet, uses the term to reflect on what is considered a new generation of artists. The documentary, filmed in Morocco, revolves around artists’ occupation of spaces for self-expression and suggests that the emergence of new musical genres like rap and heavy metal since the start of the new century has revolutionized Morocco’s youth. The term has also been used in the song “Issawa Style” (2006) by H-Kayne, called one of the blueprints for the Moroccan hip hop scene. The song’s chorus repeats the lyrics: All Moroccans! lkoula mgharba H-Kayne brings the catchy Issawi rhythm  h-kayne britem issawi jadba get up, wake up, raha nayda nouda let’s go crazy! nhablouha nouda On the surface, the term Nayda is used here to invite the audience to stand up and move; however, H-Kayne uses the action as a leitmotif in their lyrics to set Moroccans in motion, to make them think and react. Another rapper from the group, Othman, builds on the idea and sings in the track “Kima Dima” (As Usual, 2006), Melody and style, nagma o style crazy, start to move, 7ma9 hbile, bda tharak don’t stay sitting down matab9ach galas Shut up and try to understand properly  skot fham mazyan And Don Bigg in “Mgharba Tal Mout” (Moroccans Until Death, 2006) says at the end of this song: New style new shit  [in English] 100% Moroccan music  Moussi9a 100% Maghribiya the beat is over there Lbeat men lhih and rap is over here w rap men hna and wake up! w nayda! The term is used as such in the young Moroccan’s daily life, as well as in some rap songs, but also used in a different sense meaning ‘turn up’ as used by Anglophone youth and therefore, not linked to this particular narrative of artistic movement as such.

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Rapper Mobydick agrees with researchers such as Fatma Aït Mous (2008: 299), Caubet in Casanayda (2007), and TelQuel (June 10, 2006) in relating Nayda to the booming of music festivals and rap music by 2006. Although Mobydick does not employ the word Nayda, the rapper sets 2006 as an important year in Moroccan rap, saying that it marked a turning point in the quality of production: 2006 was when everything started, before then there were some tapes, some demos, but they weren’t very interesting. Then in 2006 a few albums were released, from Bigg and H-Kayne. As you can see, we’re talking whole albums, not just singles or just one group that puts out one single every three years, it wasn’t a big thing if you know what I mean. It was that way before 2006, just a few singles on the net or RapTV. (Mobydick 2013, interview, July 5)

Mobydick’s insight follows the timeline of the Nayda, the same one that TelQuel and Casanayda (2007) had set out. More importantly, Mobydick links this timeline with the fact that in 2006 rappers found themselves all of a sudden promoted: What happened was that the politics in Morocco made it so the artists were pushed forward with no reason, we didn’t have the level [of experience], we didn’t have anything to contribute with. But, because the political agenda claimed rappers, and we were well paid, we found ourselves […] with a microphone; you know what I mean? We didn’t have a career [before]. (Mobydick 2013, interview, July 5)

Mobydick points out that the Moroccan rap scene took off when media and the Internet advertised their productions, thus providing rappers with access to a larger audience. According to Mobydick, the media and music festivals called on rappers to feature in their programmes without the artists having developed a solid music career. This was also the case for himself: “I had the experience of going on a huge stage, with thousands of people in front of me, while all I’d really done was a single”. The case of Mobydick, who gained fame after winning the Tremplin du Boulevard27 in 2006, parallels the experiences of H-Kayne, Don Bigg and Casa Crew. As Hatim Bensalha (2011, interview, July 2) from H-Kayne told me, when they won the Tremplin in 2003, they had not applied to participate. Rather, they were called on to participate in the contest; they went, performed and won. In terms of the rap movement, L’Boulevard festival, and the artists it promoted, is central to the Nayda

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narrative as the fact that it is considered the only big ‘independent’ festival couples well with the secular civil society’s agenda. Morocco’s strong secular intellectual tradition includes actors from secular civil society who subscribe to the principles of the French concept of laicité, whereby religion should remain separate from state institutions (Cavatorta 2006: 212). In the MENA region such a tradition of civil society acts as “a counter-weight to the state” (Sater 2007: 4). Civil society may be further defined as an autonomous group of institutions and associations that stand between the state, the market, and family as a way of preventing tyranny (Cavatorta 2006: 205). Examples of Moroccan civil society groups are the AMDH (Association Marocaine des Droits de l’Homme), ADFM (Association Démocratique des Femmes du Maroc) and UPFM (Union Progressiste de Femmes Marocaines). It is worth mentioning that secular liberal groups are often founded and run by members of the French-educated elite, for example the leaders or members of women’s associations (Cavatorta 2009: 148). It has been argued that some of these groups have difficulty relating to the majority of the Moroccan population due to the educational and socio-economic gaps between them (Cavatorta 2009: 148; Smith and Loudiy 2005: 1096). These elites have played a significant role in shaping Nayda as a movement of young rebels through association with the Spanish ‘Movida’. The term ‘Moroccan Movida’ has been borrowed from the Movida Madrileña. This cultural movement, which emerged in Spain after the death of Franco (1975) and the transformation of the Spanish constitution (1978), resulted in groups of people gathering in Madrid wishing to express themselves freely through different art forms. The name has nevertheless been abandoned in Morocco because, unlike Spain, the country has not experienced a swift change towards democracy. However, the association with the Spanish Movida suggests a rather superficial comparison between the Spanish transition to democracy and Morocco’s change of king based on the work of a group of artists, and bolsters the Makhzen’s narrative of exceptionalism. This narrative was rescued during the ‘Arab Spring’ in Zakia Salime’s article “Rapping the Revolution” that perpetuates the romanticized perception of Nayda claiming, “Nayda is now widely celebrated as an urban youth protest movement”.28 The article’s emphasis on the idea that Nayda is exclusively a ‘protest’ movement reduces the complex music scene as this book attests and, more importantly, overlooks the fact that artists and cultural stakeholders, who supposedly belong to this movement, are critical about Nayda.

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Though these scholars consider Nayda a social and—some argue—a politicized movement of artists, when I asked Casa Crew member Masta Flow about Nayda he answered, “I have never understood exactly what that means” (2011, interview, November 2). As the rapper further explained in our interview, according to him, youth in Morocco associate the term with partying and dancing, not with a politicized movement. In the same vein, Don Bigg states that “there has never been Nayda here” (TelQuel June 7, 2012), also claiming in an Al-Jazeera report that Nayda is a word used to label hip hop and everything made by youth in contemporary Morocco, pointing out the superficiality of the concept.29 Hicham Bahou, one of the founders of the music festival L’Boulevard, recalls that it is journalists who constructed the idea: “[Nayda] is made up by journalists. They have invented Nayda. We never spoke about a movement or anything similar.”30 The instrumentalization of Nayda by documentaries and books—as Hicham Bahou points out— suggests a trendy and over-romanticized perception of the term: “In what has already been done, there are some interesting things, however it is often romanticized, and commercialized. The concept of Nayda is more related to a fad, but it is more than that” (TelQuel May 22, 2010). Hicham Bahou went on to lament the lack of in-depth analysis in dealing with Nayda in Farida Benlyazid and Dominique Caubet’s documentary Casanayda (2007): “It’s a very good thing. But I think it lacks in depth. It remains a superficial approach” (May 22, 2010). This narrative of Nayda, that includes a call for ‘progress’, ‘openness’ and ‘modernity’, is as much one of some secular civil society groups as of the state itself. In the case of Nayda, a romantic perception bred by groups within secular civil society aids the Makhzen in claiming an ‘openness’ for the monarchy, which is in line with their official narrative of the Moroccan ‘exception’. In this way, the Makhzen is able to control dissent and appropriate civil society groups’ strategies to enthral the country’s youth. Moreover, the state has proved efficient in its aim to divide and rule the opposition movements (Cavatorta 2007: 188). Instead of using methods of coercion, the Makhzen has chosen cooption and selective rewards to consolidate authoritarian rule. The Moroccan state has undertaken a similar plan with the music scene and in particular rappers, where some are promoted and others overlooked as the following chapters evidence. However, despite the competing ideological groups who have praised rap music, many rappers have learned to navigate the field. While some have decided to profit from the benefits of

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being favoured by the elites, others have managed to build their careers ‘resisting’ a scene that asphyxiates any rapper who does not accommodate the needs of the elites, whether these stand near the monarchy or belong to the urban French-educated. Certainly, the Moroccan rap scene has benefited from a combination of social and political circumstances that have led it to acquire an unparalleled privileged position within the rap scene of the MENA region. In Morocco, I was frequently told that King Mohammed VI simply likes rap. The king’s taste in music may be one of the reasons for granting rappers performances on big state-funded festival stages across the country and awarding them with royal medals. However, the stakes at play in ‘resisting’ or performing dominant political narratives and thus helping or not to perpetuate the monarchy’s power are too high. One must wonder, if rap is mostly associated with ‘protest’ culture, why would the king ‘like’ it and, further, economically support and promote it? This question establishes the underpinning of the following chapter, where I will discuss the construction of Moroccan postcolonial identity and the birth of patriotic rap. The chapter will show that rap music may be perceived not only as an invaluable political asset to ‘resist’ attacks to Morocco’s status quo, but also as a space in which on-going debates about the nation come to life and thus, one of the rare spaces for youthful participation in this neoliberal authoritarian regime.

Notes



1. The ‘Lead Years’ are known as a period characterized by extreme repression that started in the 1970s after Hassan II suffered two coup attempts and lasted until the mid-1990s. 2. In 1912, the Sultan signed the Treaty of Fes by which Morocco became a French protectorate. Later that year, the French and the Spanish signed an agreement whereby Spain would take control of the northern region including the Rif Mountains. 3. See Islam in Liberalism (2015) by Joseph Massad for a comprehensive study on the construction of ‘democracy’, ‘modernity’ and women’s ‘rights’ as part of the narrative of European liberalism. 4. Lisa Storm defines cosmetic changes as those that “are either not substantial or focus on areas of the constitution that are of minor importance to the development of democracy” (Storm 2007: 195). In this sense, the amendments to the constitution of 1970, 1972, 1980, 1992 and 1996 can also be described as cosmetic.

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5. h ttp://www.unicef.org/infobycountr y/morocco_statistics.html [Accessed September 5, 2016]; http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ SE.ADT.LITR.ZS [Accessed September 5, 2016]. 6. Though Salafism is sometimes described as a radical and violent movement (see for example Daadaoui 2011: 79), violence characterizes only some sections within Salafism, normally referred to as Salafiyya Jihadiyya or Salafī-jihadists. See Mohamed Tozy (2009) and Abdelhakim Aboullouz (2011) for an account of Salafism in Morocco. 7. http://www.bladi.net/la-condamnation-de-14-jeunes-accuses-de-satanisme-suscite-une.html [Accessed September 25, 2016]. 8. The coalition included three human rights organizations [the Association Marocaine des Droits de l’Homme (AMDH), the Organisation Marocaine des Droits Humains (OMDH) and the Forum pour la Vérité et la Justice (FVJ)], together with feminist organizations and the union of left movements (the Gauche Socialiste Unifiée, or GSU), and the Party of the Independent Left. 9.  http://www.leconomiste.com/article/retro-2003brsalafia-et-satanismela-justice-mise-rude-epreuve [Accessed September 25, 2016]. 10. http://www.bladi.net/maroc-appel-a-la-revision-du-proces-de-musicienssoupconnes-de.html [Accessed September 25, 2016]. 11.  h ttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/mar/11/arts.artsnews [Accessed September 25, 2016]. 12. See for example Ahmed Benchemsi’s article “The Arab Exception” in Politico Magazine, March/April 2014, Available at http://www.politico. com/magazine/story/2014/02/morocco-the-arab-exception-103884. html#.Uw-DMkJ_v9d [Accessed September 25, 2016]; TelQuel’s (October 29, 2013) special issue “l’Exception Marocaine: du myth à la propagande”; “Morocco: Constitutional reform will not save regime”, March 15, 2011, Available at http://www.marxist.com/morocco-­ constitutional-reform-will-not-save-regime.htm [Accessed September 25, 2016]. 13.  See a sample of Ahmed Al Bidaoui’s music at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=N0-c-bJhdOs [Accessed October 1, 2016]. 14. For more on Slaoui refer to an article in the Moroccan magazine Zamane (March 3, 2014, Available at http://www.zamane.ma/houcine-slaoui-lechaabi-crooner/ [Accessed October 1, 2016]). See a sample of Slaoui’s music at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uzLmCEeEAE [October 1, 2016]. 15. Aita is a popular music genre practised in the Atlantic region, from the coast of Casablanca to the southern town of Asfi. Sung by women and men, Aitas generally start with an invocation to God and the saints (Aydoun 2001: 108).

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16. Malhun is a kind of oral poetry in Darija which usually involves percussion instruments. 17. Gnawa musicians are Muslim, sometimes described as Sufi due to their similar organizational practices, who claim Sidi Bilal el Habashi as a patron saint (Bentahar 2010: 42). Although their origins are uncertain, Gnawa is rooted in sub-Saharan Africa, arriving in Morocco through trans-Saharan trade. (For a detailed analysis on Gnawa origins see El Hamel 2008.) 18. Halqa (meaning ‘circle’) is a performance in a public space that includes music, dance, storytellers and fortune-tellers. 19. The Maghreb is formed by Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, often including also Mauritania and Libya. 20. See for example a breakdance battle in 1999 at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=LsJXwwnp0jk [Accessed October 1, 2016] or a performance of one of the first rap groups in Casablanca, Thug Gang, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrtuVh528RE [Accessed October 1, 2016]. 21.  These include the Wilaya du Grand Casablanca, Ville de Casablanca, Région du Grand Casablanca and the Conseil Préfectoral de Casablanca. 22.  See Kiwan and Meinhof (2011: 63–77) for more information on L’Boulevard. 23.  http://fondationhiba.ma/content/presentation [Accessed September 14, 2016]. 24. http://aujourdhui.ma/culture/un-nouvel-elan-pour-la-creation-musicale-115895 [Accessed September 14, 2016]. 25.  http://www.studiohiba.ma/en/ [Accessed September 14, 2016]. 26.  http://www.africultures.com/php/?nav=article&no=8772 [Accessed September 14, 2016]. 27. Tremplin du Boulevard is a music competition that takes place within L’Boulevard festival to promote new talent. 28. http://muftah.org/rapping-the-revolution/ [Accessed October 2, 2016]. 29.  See video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_sm29N6laQ [Accessed October 2, 2016]. 30.  http://metropolis.ma/?p=254 [Accessed April 9, 2014].

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48  C. Moreno Almeida Callen J. 2006. French Fries in the Tagine: Re-imagining Moroccan Popular Music. University of California. Available from http://popculturetransgressions. com/2010/04/17/french-fries-in-the-tagine-moroccan-alternative-music/. Cavatorta, F. 2006. Civil Society, Islamism and Democratisation: The Case of Morocco. Journal of Modern African Studies 44 (2): 203–222. Cavatorta, F. 2007. More Than Repression: The Significance of Divide et Impera in the Middle East and North Africa—The Case of Morocco. Journal of Contemporary African Studies 25 (2): 187–203. Cavatorta, F. 2009. Divided They Stand, Divided They Fail: Opposition Politics in Morocco. Democratization 16 (1): 137–156. Cavatorta, F., and E. Dalmasso. 2013. The Emerging Power of Civil Society? The Human Rights Doctrine. In Contemporary Morocco: State, Politics and Society Under Mohammed VI, ed. B. Maddy-Weitzman and D. Zisenwine, 120–135. Routledge: Abingdon. Cavatorta, F., and V. Durac. 2011. Civil Society and Democratization in the Arab World: The Dynamics of Activism. London: Routledge. Cohen, S., and L. Jaidi. 2006. Morocco: Globalization and Its Consequences. New York: Routledge. Daadaoui, M. 2011. Moroccan Monarchy and the Islamist Challenge: Maintaining Makhzen Power. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. El Hamel, C. 2008. Constructing a Diasporic Identity: Tracing the Origins of the Gnawa Spiritual Group in Morocco. The Journal of African History 49 (2): 241–260. Errihani, M. 2013. The Amazigh Renaissance: Tamazigh in the Time of Mohammed VI. In Contemporary Morocco: State, Politics and Society Under Mohammed VI, ed. B. Maddy-Weitzman and D. Zisenwine, 57–69. Routledge: Abingdon. Férnandez Molina, I. 2011. The Monarchy vs. the 20 February Movement: Who Holds the Reins of Political Change in Morocco? Mediterranean Politics 16 (3): 435–441. Fernández Parrilla, G., and H. Islán Fernández. 2009. La Leyenda Nass El Ghiwane. Al-Andalus Magreb 16: 149–161. Folkestad, G. 2002. National Identity and Music. In Musical Identities, ed. R. McDonald, D. Hargreaves, and D. Miell, 151–162. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gershovich, M., 2013. “The ‘New Press’ and Free Speech under Mohammed VI.” In B. Maddy-Weitzman & D. Zisenwine, eds. Contemporary Morocco: State, Politics and Society under Mohammed VI. Milton Park, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 93–108. Graiouid, S., and T. Belghazi. 2013. Cultural Production and Cultural Patronage in Morocco: The State, the Islamists, and the Field of Culture. Journal of African Cultural Studies 25 (3): 261–274.

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Hegasy, S. 2007. Young Authority: Quantitative and Qualitative Insights into Youth, Youth Culture, and State Power in Contemporary Morocco. The Journal of North African Studies 12 (1): 19–36. Howe, M. 2005. Morocco: The Islamist Awakening and Other Challenges. New York: Oxford University Press. Joffé, G. 2009. Morocco’s Reform Process: Wider Implications. Mediterranean Politics 14 (2): 151–164. Kausch, K. 2009. The European Union and Political Reform in Morocco. Mediterranean Politics 14 (2): 165–179. Kiwan, N., and U. Meinhof. 2011. Cultural Globalization and Music: African Artists in Transnational Networks. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Kozma, L. 2003. Moroccan Women’s Narrative of Liberation: A Passive Revolution? In Nation, Society and Culture in North Africa, ed. J. Mcdougall, 112–130. London: Frank Cass Publishers. Laachir, K. 2013. Managed Reforms and Deferred Democratic Rule in Morocco and Algeria. In Democracy and Reform in the Middle East and Asia, ed. A. Saikal and A. Acharya, 43–63. New York: I.B. Tauris. Linn, R. 2011. Change Within Continuity: The Equity and Reconciliation Commission and Political Reform in Morocco. The Journal of North African Studies 16 (1): 1–17. Lohman, L. 2009. The Artist of the People in the Battle: Umm Kulthum’s Concerts for Egypt in Political Context. In Music and the Play of Power in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, ed. L. Nooshin, 33–54. Farnham: Ashgate. Maghraoui, A. 2001. Political Authority in Crisis: Mohammed VI’s Morocco. Middle East Report 218 (Spring): 12–17. Maghraoui, D. 2009. The Strengths and Limits of Religious Reforms in Morocco. Mediterranean Politics 14 (2): 195–211. Maghraoui, D. 2011. Constitutional Reforms in Morocco: Between Consensus and Subaltern Politics. The Journal of North African Studies 16 (4): 679–699. Massad, J. 2005. Liberating Songs: Palestine Put to Music. In Palestine, Israel, and the Politics of Popular Culture, ed. R. Stein and S. Ted, 176–201. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Massaia, A. 2013. Un désir de culture: Essaie sur l’action culturelle au Maroc. Casablanca: Editions de la Croisée des Chemins. Miliani, H. 2002. Culture planétaire et indentités frontalieres: À propos du rap en Algérie. Cahiers d’Études Africaines 42 (168): 763–778. Mitchell, T. 2001. Another Root—Hip-Hop outside the USA. In Global Noise: Rap and Hip-Hop Outside the USA, ed. T. Mitchell, 1–38. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

50  C. Moreno Almeida Nooshin, L. 2009. Prelude: Power and the Play of Music. In Music and the Play of Power in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, ed. L. Nooshin, 1–32. Farnham: Ashgate. Orlando, V.K., 2009. Francophone Voices of the “New” Morocco in Film and Print: (Re)presenting a Society in Transition, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Sater, J.N. 2007. Civil Society and Political Change in Morocco. New York: Routledge. Sater, J.N. 2010. Morocco: Challenges to Tradition and Modernity. London: Routledge. Smith, A.R. & Loudiy, F., 2005. “Testing the Red Lines: On the Liberalization of Speech in Morocco.” Human Rights Quaterly, 27 (3), pp.1069–1119. Stone, C. 2007. Popular Culture and Nationalism in Lebanon: The Fairouz and Rahbani Nation. Florence, KY: Routledge. Storm, L. 2007. Democratization in Morocco: The Political Elite and Struggles for Power in the Post-Independence State. London: Routledge. Tozy, M. 2009. L’évolution du champ religieux marocain au défi de la mondialisation. Revue internationale de politique comparée 16 (1): 63–81. UNDP. 2005. 50 Years of Human Development & Perspectives to 2025—The Future Is Being Built and the Best Is Possible. Willis, M.J. 2009. Conclusion: The Dynamics of Reform in Morocco. Mediterranean Politics 14 (2): 229–237. World Bank. 2012. Kingdom of Morocco Promoting Youth Opportunities and Participation. Zirbel, K.E. 2000. Playing It Both Ways: Local Egyptian Performers Between Regional Identity and International Markets. In Mass Mediations: New Approaches to Popular Culture in the Middle East and Beyond, ed. W. Ambrust. Berkeley: University of California Press. Zisenwine, D. 2010. The Emergence of Nationalist Politics in Morocco: The Rise of the Independence Party and the Struggle Against Colonialism after World War II. London: I.B. Tauris.

CHAPTER 3

Rap and the Revival of Patriotism

Across North Africa and the Middle East, patriotic themes belong to the tradition of many music genres. The success of El General, a Tunisian rapper who openly denounced Ben Ali’s authoritarianism, prompted a high number of revolutionary and patriotic rap songs in Tunisia after the uprisings. Despite their ubiquity, the number of studies on the role of patriotic or nationalistic songs in the Arabic-speaking world remains limited to works dealing with individual singers (Massad 2005: 176). In the context of rap music across the region, Palestine and Morocco have produced a considerable body of songs dedicated to expressing love and pride towards the nation. The political contexts of these two countries, however, could not be more different. Patriotic rap songs in Palestine embody the struggle of Palestinians to survive and reaffirm their status as a nation in confronting the powers that seek to colonize and end its national identity. In Morocco, patriotic rap songs have emerged under a rather different political climate, one characterized by stability, unity and discourses of democratic change brought by a new young king. While in Palestine patriotic rap songs are framed as part of the narrative of resistance, in Morocco rap songs expressing love and pride for the nation at times of relative calm have sparked accusations of state co-option. Empty of social criticisms and often limited to showcasing the beauty of Morocco, these songs encapsulate the revival of patriotic themes that had declined in the Moroccan music scene with the explosion of new music genres in the 1970s. © The Author(s) 2017 C. Moreno Almeida, Rap Beyond Resistance, Pop Music, Culture and Identity, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-60183-0_3

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One of the aims of patriotic discourses and thus patriotic songs has been to construct an enemy whose will is to divide and destroy the country, and it is patriots who will save and develop the country, bringing a brighter future. Although in light of a relative political stability these may not look like acts of resistance, considering these songs as a strategy to resist accusations of cultural imperialism suggests otherwise. As this chapter discusses, the socially accepted patriotic theme that flourished in the postcolonial period has helped Moroccan rap music and hip hop culture to liberate itself from accusations of being a Western attack on Moroccan culture. These songs have provided entry points for rappers and other creative expressions of hip hop culture to enter mainstream media and be socially accepted and considered as part of contemporary Moroccan youth culture. Tracing these songs politically, historically and aesthetically contributes to understanding the singular emergence of patriotic rap in Morocco.

Rituals of Power Popular culture and everyday practices play a significant role in negotiating, contesting and shaping the nation (Abu-Lughod 2005: 26; Edensor 2002: 1). Its resilience, its ability to change shape and to quickly adapt, is behind the difficulty that scholars have found in crafting a singular definition of the nation (Smith 1998: 221). However, scholars continue to be determined in applying a single definition to all nations (Canetti 1978: 169). Lowell W. Barrington’s (2006) approach to defining the nation is useful as a starting point. For Barrington, nations are “collectives united by shared cultural features (such as language, myths, and values) and the belief in the right to territorial self-determination” (Barrington 2006: 7). He thus sees nations as grouped and distinguished according to these shared features, which are embodied in the territory the group believes belongs to them. Following Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities (1991), these shared cultural features would be culturally constructed and the nation a ‘cultural artefact’ or indeed a system of meanings. Thus, a “sense of national identity then is not a once and for all thing, but is dynamic and dialogic, found in the constellations of a huge cultural matrix of images, ideas, spaces, things, discourses and practices” (Edensor 2002: 17). Drawing on Gramsci, John Storey (2003: 51) suggests that everyday experiences and popular culture are responsible for the nation’s plasticity. We can therefore agree that nations are a complex phenomenon embedded in the popular and everyday experiences constantly “written, unwritten, rewritten, but not as rigid units” (Schaebler 2007: 179).

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A main component of the Moroccan nation is the centrality of its monarchy, whose relationship with the population is constructed and reinforced through the regular performance of state rituals. Researchers like M. Elaine Combs-Schilling (1999) and Mohamed Daadaoui (2011) argue that the performance of such rituals connects the monarchy to the people in order to create shared cultural features. In “Performing Monarchy, Staging the Nation” (1999), Combs-Schilling examines a series of ritual performances whereby music, festivities and the purity of the white robe establish not only the unity between the Moroccan monarchy and the people, but also the king’s centrality as sacred emblem of the nation. Combs-Schilling (1999: 180) describes a ceremony of King al-Mansur (1578–1603) where he staged a performance of the Birth of the Prophet in several parts of the country. The performance placed the king in front of his subjects as the symbol of the nation: “the nation gathered in gazing at the central king, the material signifier of the whole, the nodal point of the festivities, and the emblem of the nation” (Combs-Schilling 1999: 81). The songs, dance, the sounding of trumpets were combined with the sacred play that made use of both words and lighting so that the “people’s own bodies seemingly demonstrated the natural hierarchy … that elevates the white-robed ruler, the descendant of the Prophet, over all the rest as the best-of-case representative, the man par excellence” (Combs-Schilling 1999: 180). These historical traditional performances staged by the king contributed for centuries to legitimize his role by symbolizing national unity. These performances are, of course, not the only example of state pageantry that puts a focus on the king as a symbol of national unity. In 1934, still under the French rule, la Fête du Trône was established as a Nationalist Day to celebrate the nation and to glorify the Sultan, where calls of “Long Live the King” stated the significance of the monarchy (Sater 2010: 20–21). Festivities held by the king and the people allow the population to “experience itself as interwoven in a distinct politicalcultural entity, a nation” (Combs-Schilling 1999: 185). In other words, ritual performances are a key tool for the Moroccan monarchy to build the imagined nation around the king. Mohamed Daadaoui (2011) calls these performances “rituals of power” which he defines as the following four elements: the king’s sharafa (prophetic lineage), baraka (divine blessing), the bay’a or annual ceremony of allegiance, and his claim as ‘amīr al-mu’minīn (commander of the faithful). Daadaoui sees the king’s performance of power in front of the people as the monarchy’s

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strategy to build unity, and also to retain the king as the legitimate spiritual leader of a civilian collective. The baraka, sharafa, bay’a and ‘amīr al-mu’minīn constitute “a part of the historical authority of the Makhzen in its spiritual guise” (Daadaoui 2011: 6). References to these attributes are performed in ceremonies and spectacles to “aggrandize the regime and sanctify it in the national memory” (Daadaoui 2011: 3). In this sense, the annual bay’a or oath of allegiance establishes a renewal of the bond between the king and the people, which is in fact an oath of obedience to the king and a recognition of his authority as a national figure. Key is the fact that the ceremony is based on a consensus that must be consolidated: national divisions must be solved and obedience to the authority must be affirmed. When diverse segments of the population pledge allegiance to the monarch, the king becomes a unifier of the nation, but also a leader and arbiter (Hammoudi 1997: 19). Through these performances, the nation is reminded of the king’s authority and legitimacy, and of the centrality of the monarchy in the constitution of any definition of the nation. Nevertheless, the construction of the Moroccan nation through these performances and rituals must be carefully contextualized as they were picked up by the dominant nationalist narrative during the struggle for independence. During the 1940s, Moroccan urban elites who would later form the Istiqlal Party (Independence Party) absorbed the different parties involved in resistance to the French and Spanish occupation and constructed a unified narrative of the Moroccan nation (Lawrence 2012: 485). What resulted came to be the dominant nationalist narrative that presented the king as unifier and emblem of the nation. When the French rule was allowed to take over the country in 1912, however, the role of the king was reduced to that of figurehead (Hammoudi 1997: 15). Partly as a reaction to this, as Remy Leveau (1997: 105) has observed, the monarch’s image as a national religious symbol was developed specifically as a unifying force, especially after the Rif uprising in 1925. The Rif Wars (1919–1926), led by Abdelkrim Al Khattabi against the Spanish colonial power, represent an attempt to establish the Republic of the Rif that at the same time challenged the Moroccan monarchy’s rule over this northern region (Howe 2005: 66; Leveau 1997: 105). In order to oppose the French and Spanish colonial rule, as well as to prevent regional leaders challenging the monarch’s legitimacy and hegemonic power, the king’s role as spiritual leader was enhanced as part of the urban nationalist elite agenda to gain power. During nationalist

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demonstrations against colonial rule, protesters constructed power and legitimacy in opposition to the colonizers, holding banners declaring “‘Long live Islam!’ ‘Long live Morocco!’ ‘Long live the Sultan!’” (Entelis 1989: 57). This linked the king, religion and nationalism in a way that would carry through in the following years and become the foundations of the dominant Moroccan postcolonial identity. In 1947, Sultan Mohammed V made public his alignment with the nationalist leaders, saying the move was necessary in order to ensure the re-establishment of an independent Moroccan state. This step allowed the king to recover his popularity by placing him alongside the struggle of the people, and at the same time strengthened his position (Stenner 2012: 589). Back from his exile (1953–1956), the king was welcomed home as the hero of independence, but also a figure who possessed baraka or prophetic charisma (Daadaoui 2011: 46; Hammoudi 1997: 18). The Istiqlal Party reciprocated the monarch’s support to the nationalist movement by supporting the king in the first years of independence. However, conferring excessive importance on the rituals of power may lead to the assumption that the Moroccan nation is eminently a product of an ‘Alawite—that is, the current ruling dynasty—master plan. Hammoudi and Sater show that the power of the monarchy’s rituals is not always successful in establishing unifying narratives. While belonging to the prophetic lineage (sharafa) and the monarch’s claim as ‘amīr al-mu’minīn perpetuates the king as benefactor, Sater (2010: 44) suggests that the sharafa can also be used to grant legitimacy to other rival groups that have the same claim of belonging to the prophetic lineage. Moreover, when Abdelkrim al Khattabi founded the Republic of the Rif in the north of the country without any reference to the prophetic lineage, the idea that it was a necessary part of national consciousness was debunked (Hammoudi 1997: 15). As Hammoudi explains: “The idea that sharafism [the prophetic lineage] is the foundation of the Moroccan nation and is responsible for its continuity since the eighth century is, however, a recent point of view, which may, incidentally, contradict the scholarly theory of allegiance” (Hammoudi 1997: 25). Traditional legitimacy, Hammoudi argues, is what would remain in the minds of people when the monarch is able to defeat enemies or accomplish other feats in the name of the nation. At the same time, he notes that in times of crisis, religious titles are not something that matter in the minds of the people. Several coup d’état at the beginning of the 1970s that failed to end King Hassan II’s rule weakens arguments against the power of these

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rituals. On the one hand, the fact that the life of the king was threatened is proof of the frailty of the monarchy’s rituals of power. However, after surviving two threats against his life, Hassan II began to be seen as a miracle, a sentiment which fed back into notions of his baraka and sharafa and to his position as a national and unifying icon (Sater 2010: 45; Willis and Maarouf 2010: 7). Though Daadaoui considers these events as “isolated incidents of political unrest” (Daadaoui 2011: 98), the coups against Hassan II caused a crisis in the king’s domestic policy (Sater 2010: 125). The events in what in Morocco are known as the Southern Provinces, that is, the Sahara region later that decade not only helped to overcome this crisis, but have also become one of the main symbols of patriotism.

Constructing the Postcolonial National Identity In October 1975, Hassan II called 350,000 volunteers to participate in a peaceful march across the border into the Southern Provinces or Western Sahara region occupied by Spain since 1884. Then, on November 6, Moroccan men and women peacefully entered the area of the Spanish Colony armed with copies of the Quran, Moroccan flags, and pictures of King Hassan II without facing any opposition from the Spanish army. In 1976, Spain officially withdrew from the territory, allowing the king to claim a victory. The Sahara did not prove such a simple region, however. By February that same year, the Saharawi nationalist movement for independence led by the Frente Polisario1 had declared the birth of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). At the same time, Morocco organized an oath of allegiance, one of the rituals of power, in the city of Layoune to claim the territory as Moroccan. The situation intensified when some of the region’s inhabitants fled into refugee camps in the western Algerian region of Tindouf to protect themselves from the armed conflict. The fact that Algeria had offered shelter was for Morocco proof that the neighbouring country supported Polisario and a sign that Algeria had played a role in the existence of the independence movement. The next few years saw intense armed and diplomatic campaigns, and a dispute that remains until today between Moroccan authorities, who claim rights over the region as part of pre-colonial Morocco, Polisario, which claims the right for self-determination, and Algeria which is still imaged as a political enemy of Morocco. The Saharawi nationalist project that emerged during the 1970s questioned the validity of the rituals of power in maintaining the unity of the

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nation, even if official Moroccan sources tended to depoliticize the issue by blaming the Sahara conflict on economic problems (Maghraoui 2002: 26; San Martin 2007: 581–583). The fact that there was (and is) such a crisis within the Sahara region under Moroccan control questions not only the nature of the hegemonic political system, but also the monarchy and its ability to claim national unity (San Martin 2007: 583). As a signifier of Moroccan nationalism and patriotism, conquering territory conceived as part of the ‘homeland’ has been essential to the nationalist ideology and has been discussed in some quarters with a sense of national pride: “Whatever else others outside of Morocco may think of this policy or the diplomatic defeats associated with it, the Western Sahara issue has galvanized nationalist pride and identity unlike anything else since independence” (Entelis 1989: 59). In this sense, the Sahara’s ‘reintegration’ to Morocco’s territory has been a symbolic concern that has reinforced the relationship between the monarchy and Moroccans, consolidating the monarchy as defender of national unity and provider of political stability. The ‘Green March’ showed the king as a defender of the nation’s interests and has taken its place in the nation’s collective memory including among the most critical sectors of society. As Sater argues, “[f]inding financial, political, and military support for its Western Sahara campaign has been the Kingdom’s main priority, as this issue proved to be crucial for the consolidation of King’s Hassan II’s power” (Sater 2010: 11). The success of the march into the Sahara, attributed entirely to King Hassan II, combined with electoral processes allowing for limited electoral participation granted the king the necessary legitimacy for ending years of battles with opposition parties (Hammoudi 1997: 20; Sater 2010: 42). The Sahara issue has thus supported hegemonic narratives exploited by the state, who have stressed the need for Moroccan unity under the leadership of the king. The Sahara events also confirm that the formation of a nation is part of a complex process that includes rituals of power, but also the power’s capitalization of historical events that remain in the collective memory and not a single event. Walker Connor (1990: 99) argues that there is a tendency to fix the construction of the nation and nationalist movements at a particular point in time. In Morocco, scholars have established the protest against the Berber Dahir or edict in 1930 as the beginning of the Moroccan nationalist movement (see for example Hammoudi 1997: 15; Stora 2003; Zisenwine 2010: 10). This was also the era of the free schools movement, at the end of the 1920s, which saw stress put on the

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integration of Islamic studies and Arabic language study in government schooling. Within this framework, previous actions carried out by the elites and popular demonstrations during the 1930s are often referred to as a ‘proto-nationalist’ period (Burke 1998: 6; Stora 2003: 21). As Lawrence (2012: 475) observes, the same impulse that fixes national identity based on a particular moment discloses the fact that all the demands for reforms that emerged during French rule were gathered into a unique nationalist narrative. Thus, the nationalist narrative that presents the king as the symbol of unity absorbed a number of different and not necessarily aligned voices, which are then presented as a united nationalist agenda that took shape at a single point in time. The leadership of the national movement has been the central point of scholars (for example Stora 2003) who have focused less on understanding the mechanisms through which the rest of the population became involved in the movement. As Lawrence claims, many studies “fail to consider the ways in which the development of national consciousness takes continual work and may not grow in a natural or obvious way” (Lawrence 2012: 479). In this sense, in attaining and retaining power, the monarchy and nationalist elites require a constant reminder of the national narrative in order to create an imaginary supported by the masses. As Connor (1990: 98–99) argues, although it is only recently that the nationalist elites have considered the masses as part of the nation, national consciousness requires a sufficient percentage of population to internalize the national identity in order for the nation to become a force that mobilizes the masses. National consolidation in Morocco, therefore, occurred only when the monarchy had access to “peripheral people, discourses and symbols” (Combs-Schilling 1999: 186). Rituals are important only when the people recognize the authority of the king, so that the performances dictate the terms of recognition that eventually are taken up as true. What this stresses is that the king as well as the nationalist movements cannot survive without the support of the masses. It is only when these movements achieve the people’s support that nationalist programmes become meaningful (Forrest 2006: 40). Therefore, the elites of the nationalist movement are required to negotiate with the masses the terms of the nation building in order to win their support. It is important to recognize, however, that history written by a nationalist impulse remains a narrative written by a privileged urban elite even if it claims to speak in the name of the people. Though the

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people are an essential element in the construction of national identity, the power of the elites in constructing hegemonic national discourses into which the voices of the people can be subsumed must be taken into account. It may be argued that in spite of the need for popular support, the elites enjoy a privileged stand from which to shape social and political discourses, and ‘imagine’ cultural features to unite the masses. It is from this standpoint that elites dominate a space in which to negotiate the nation, a space where nations are remembered and forgotten. Michael Billig (1995: 38) explains that nations, in ‘remembering’ their own collective memory and history, inevitably also collectively forget it. In the process of remembering, therefore, the collective memory forgets or marginalizes histories, narratives, traditions, identities and so forth that are not part of the elites’ national consciousness. Indeed, it is within these spaces that elites, organizations, intellectuals and political movements fight to impose the cultural features that they consider ought to be remembered and become part of the national identity (Billig 1995: 27; Schaebler 2007: 179). This is the case of the Amazigh or Berber identity in the initial years of postcolonial Morocco. The struggle for independence of the nationalist movement whose leaders belong to the country’s urban elites as opposed to Amazigh rural areas favoured Arab identity over the Amazigh which was had been privileged by the French rule. Despite the nationalist disregard for other traits in the Moroccan identity, the Amazigh identity has however emerged in cultural forms as elites are also constrained by other social and political influences (for example certain religious values, traditions, languages) in building the nation. But because the narrative was dominated by Arab urban elites, the official and dominant expression of postcolonial Moroccan identity became Arabness, together with Islam, and nationalism with the king as the symbol of both national and territorial unity, and the Amazigh identity was ostracized. The hallmark of the dominant postcolonial Moroccan identity, Moroccan nationhood, Arabism and Islam, is what Entelis (1989) has called the ‘Muslim consensus’. While not a set of instructions that aim at transforming principles into practice, the consensus is rather a set of beliefs at the core of Moroccan national identity. Therefore, the main components of Moroccan identity for the nationalists were formulated as explicit ideologies and a system of beliefs, not descriptively as a programme for political action. The Muslim consensus builds a common group feeling around the monarchy, “a cultural synthesis comprising

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religious, nationalistic and secular strands” (Daadaoui 2011: 80). In this way, the monarchy has been able to skilfully promote religious and traditional symbols with which the majority of Moroccans relate and identify (Daadaoui 2011: 80; Entelis 1989: 56). For the masses, Islam, Arabism and Moroccan nationalism remain “the overwhelming bases of individual and local as well as collective identity” (Entelis 1989: 6). This collective identity is re-enacted by the words Allah, El Watan, El Malik (God, the Nation, the King) written in public spaces including rural areas across Morocco, present in the Moroccan national anthem and in Article 4 of the 2011 constitution: “The emblem of the Kingdom is the red flag with a green five-pointed star in the middle. The motto of the Kingdom is GOD, THE NATION, THE KING.” This motto represents the traits that unite the Moroccan nation in their relationship with the monarch as the religious leader. Through this narrative, the Moroccan state headed by the administration of the Makhzen is able to establish the legitimacy of the monarchy, and see its line of legitimacy as having been broken by French and Spanish rule.

Genesis of Patriotic Rap While hip hop culture and rap music appeared in Morocco in the 1990s, it was not until the following decade that the first patriotic rap song would become part of the mainstream music scene. Patriotic themes with lyrics and music videos that defend and claim love and pride for the nation appeared only after 2003, but have been produced steadily since then. The events that took place in 2003—the May 16 Casablanca terrorist attacks and the urban youth demonstrations which saw protests against the imprisonment of 14 musicians and heavy metal fans under accusations of satanism—were a watershed in the development of national rap music. The re-emergence of patriotic themes responded to a moment of rupture and crisis in the country when the dominant power of the state was threatened by terrorists and by some young metal heads associated with ideologies that could put at risk the Muslim consensus. At this time, some rappers started to mix this new music genre and culture with local and familiar sounds and themes, making rap more palatable for Moroccan audiences. This is the case of taqlidi (traditional) rap created by the group Fnaïre. Fnaïre skilfully repackaged what was perceived as a foreign genre to battle criticisms of American cultural imperialism endured by rappers at the time. In light of these new rap trends

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and with metal music embodying for some anti-Islamic sentiments, rap became a better fit in maintaining dominant nationalist narratives at the same time as embodying the narrative of change and openness brought by the new young king. While rappers were finding ways in which to make this music genre and culture more acceptable for conservative sectors of the Moroccan society, including the monarchy, rap suited the image of Morocco as a ‘cool’ and modern nation, and became an efficient blueprint to contain the rise of political Islam represented by the Justice and Charity group (al ‘Adl wa al Ihasān) and by the PJD (Party of Justice and Development), a party that had not supported the monarchy in the past and was gaining popular support at the time in spite of accusations of co-option since it recognized the primacy of the king. The first patriotic rap song that became well known to broader audiences in Morocco beyond rap fans is the song and music video “Matkich Bladi” (Don’t Touch My Country, 2004). The terrorist attacks in Casablanca inspired the rap group Fnaïre, originally from Marrakech, to write a song in defence of Morocco. The song reproduces the official narrative of the May 2003 events connected with violent Islamist movements and paints Morocco as an idealized nation that is only disrupted by the terrorist attacks. The lyrics address the terrorists who attacked the country and anyone else who wants to harm Morocco. The chorus goes: Don’t touch my country wa mat9iche bladi it’s my land and my grandparents’ land ardi w arde jdadi it’s my land and my grandson’s land ardi w arde 7fabi and the one who messes with my country  wli nheb f bladi I will take him by force and I shout nrfdou bchda w nadi Don’t you touch my country mat9issouche bladi In ordering terrorists to refrain from attacks, Fnaïre also claim ownership of the homeland as part of their family inheritance, drawing on linear narratives of the country’s long history. Morocco’s long history must be protected against those who are trying to end it. Further, they present an ideal nation, now damaged by terrorism, by depicting a country where people have high standards of morality, who are kind and hospitable: We don’t rob, we don’t steal manhbou mansr9ou we don’t hurt or harm anyone  man’adiw manjr7ou we don’t hurt God’s creatures rou7 rabi mandlmou

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They go on to claim: this is my country and if I see kindness 

y alehbabe hadi beladi ou l khireha nehel I open the doors el babe hiseri we kiseri Drawing on the country’s stability and rather romanticized image of coexistence has been the group’s leitmotif since this song. As one member of the group, Mouhssine, expressed during an interview: “Peace and living in harmony in your country are the main messages coming through our songs” (Benmehdi 2007). In “Matkich Bladi”, the rappers denounce the changes caused by the attacks, blaming the terrorists for ending a period of trust and peaceful cohabitation between Moroccans. As the rappers sing: we started to suspect friends nchkou fl7babe Casa[blanca] has exploded tfgrte casa we shut the doors ssdina lbwabe the trust was lost mab9atte ti9a and probably it won’t ever come back  mohal wach tareje3 el omomr In these lines, Fnaïre divides the country in two, defining Morocco as a nation of ‘good’ people versus the outsider terrorists. The narrative of events is therefore framed as a binary between good and bad, love and hate. As they claim in the song, “who hates us in our country is rejected” (likrhna f bladna mnboude) so that as long as you are kind, peaceful and pious you belong to the country, and if you are not, you will be disdained by ‘us’, that is, the ‘good’ Moroccans. The song brings up the myth of religious coexistence to accentuate the utopian narrative of the ‘goodness’ and the peacefulness of Moroccans. In this song, Fnaïre suggests that in Morocco diversity is not only accepted, but embraced: “we lived like brothers Christians, Muslims and Jews” (3chna kife lkhoute, nssara msslmine yhoude). This theme is well embedded in Morocco’s national consciousness and has been capitalized on by some music festivals in constructing Morocco as a place of religious—or even ethnic or racial—peaceful coexistence. The music festival Mawazine, for example, works to offer a taste of diverse music from around the world, and the Festival d’Essaouira Gnaoua Musiques du Monde focuses on the African and Black roots, while Fez Festival

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of World Sacred Music portrays a rather sacred depiction of Morocco. Those chosen to organize the festivals also highlight diversity. For example, André Azoulay, a royal adviser and organizer of the Festival d’Essaouira, is also a highly visible head of the Moroccan Jewish community. Indeed, Azoulay claims that music festivals in Morocco are meant to support religious diversity (Boum 2012: 25). Despite the official narrative, religious and ethnic diversity and coexistence remains a chimera. Article 3 of the Constitution clearly states that Morocco is a Muslim country: “Islam is the religion of the state that guarantees everyone freedom of religion”. While the new 2011 constitution officially grants religious diversity, the reality is that the population is overwhelmingly Muslim. Religious diversity is barely experienced in Morocco in everyday life, with less than 2% of the country as officially non-Muslim (99% Muslim, 1% Christian, and only a small fraction, of 6000, Jews2). Data collected by the Pew Center on interfaith relations revealed that 98% of Moroccan Muslims interviewed asserted that most of their close friends are Muslims too, and only 9% admitted to knowing something about Christians.3 The idea of religious tolerance in the national imaginary, and reproduced in Fnaïre’s song, thus supports less the reality of everyday life, and rather reiterates the state’s agenda that capitalizes on religious diversity to positively market Morocco as a historically ‘tolerant’ country. Despite this narrative of coexistence, love and hate are juxtaposed towards the end of the song in questioning the terrorists’ reasons for the attack: Why end your life 3elach tefeni hyatek when your country still loves you? ou bladek mazal bghatek When your country still loves you?  o u bladek mazal bghatek When your country still loves you?  o u bladek mazal bghatek If the country still loves you, their message claims, there is still hope. In all, “Matkich Bladi” makes no further attempt to go beyond the love/ hate discourse, perpetuating uncritically the official narrative that discursively constructs Islamists as the enemy of the country without exploring the alternative arguments pointing to extreme poverty and marginality as the motivation behind the blasts. Rather it considers the attackers as ‘black sheep’ who need to be stopped in order to protect the peace and unity of the country:

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Stay where you’re at, don’t destroy  7dk tmak matkhrbou Don’t kill innocent people nass abria2 mat9tlou It’s a shame what you planned rah 3ibe hatchi linwitou It’s a sin what you did rah 7rame hadchi By creating a utopian nation of goodness, Fnaïre portrays the terrorists as evil, calling them “black-hearted” (k7le l9lbe) and therefore necessarily outsiders of the Moroccan nation. More importantly, in taking on the official discourse, Fnaïre does not make an attempt to explore closely the causes that led to the attack including the country’s dramatic socioeconomic divide. What Fnaïre does accomplish with this song, however, is to challenge the dominant image of rap music as foreign genre and introduce it in the mainstream Moroccan music scene.

Iconography of Power Fnaïre’s message of unity against terrorism is reinforced by the music video of “Matkich Bladi” in employing the symbolism of the Hand of Fatima,4 or the khamsa (meaning ‘five’ in Arabic) as it is commonly referred to in Morocco, a term that represents the five fingers of a hand. A red khamsa with the words Ma t9ich bladi written in Arabic and Touche Pas à Mon Pays in French (both meaning Don’t Touch My Country) became the logo of this hit song. The crew and other actors appear in the music video performing the image of the khamsa showing the palms of their hands to the camera as a sign of protection. Throughout North Africa and the Middle East, the khamsa is used as a talisman for protection against the evil eye, appearing also in Punic and Jewish iconography to protect the dead; it is thus not uniquely connected to Islamic culture (Achrati 2003: 477). Indeed, the khamsa is a symbol deeply rooted in North African and Moroccan imagery, and in Amazigh and Arab traditions goes beyond the connection with protection to denote magic and fecundity (Achrati 2003: 472). Due to the fact that it is not associated with one particular religion but with a geographical area, in Morocco it helps to promote the idea of a united and tolerant nation (Rogers 2012: 455). In this case, a part of the human body, frequently used as a symbol of the nation (Baron 2004: 57; Mosse 1982: 223), serves as an object that promotes feelings of social solidarity, as Emile Durkheim (1915) suggests. As flags, the khamsa in Morocco is part of the national inventory of objects and symbols that serve established nations as a continual reminder of nationhood. This continual reminder is, however, biased as

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it promotes an uncritical, positive evaluation of the nation (Schatz et al. 1999: 153). The white djellaba—as argued by Combs-Schilling (1999)— or as I argue here the Moroccan flag and the khamsa, are employed as a symbol to protect the Makhzen’s dominant discourse. In other words, in protecting the nation these symbols perpetuate the power of the authorities against those who dare to challenge it. It is not rare for countries to employ different national symbols as tools that reinforce power in moments of crisis; another good example of this is represented by the US after 9/11 (Li and Brewer 2004: 729; Merskin 2007: 11; Schatz and Lavine 2007: 330). After the World Trade Center attacks, the American flag as a symbol became a sign of unity and solidarity and all criticisms were considered unpatriotic; critics of US foreign policy were seen as enemies of the nation (Merskin 2007: 12–14). This was also the case in Côte d’Ivoire during the 2002–2007 crisis (Schumann 2013) and in Morocco during 2003 and 2011 as I argue in this chapter. The music video of Fnaïre’s song “Matkich Bladi” was recorded in the city of Marrakech. It opens with a red khamsa and the same image appears in the following scene when a DJ takes out an LP (long-play) album emblazoned with this same logo at its centre, and puts it on to play. When the music starts, the scene changes and the four members of the crew pass through an archway with their palms pointing towards the camera, thus claiming the power of the khamsa. Fnaïre’s message both of unity and of love and protection for the country appears again at the end of the video when the group dedicates their album to supporters and to the Moroccans who care for and protect their country. The same image of the khamsa that Fnaïre employs in this song is also used as the logo of the Association Matkich Bladi [Fig. 3.1]. Other social movements have used the same image. These include SOS Racisme, an organization that used a hand with the motto Touch Pas à Mon Pote (Don’t Touch My Friend), the Association Matkich Wladi (Don’t Touch My Children) that fights for children’s rights, and Matqich el Mujaz (Don’t Touch the Graduates), an association of graduate students that uses the logo to protest against unemployment levels and to demand jobs. The case of the Association Matkich Bladi, however, stands out. Its purpose is to defend Morocco from its enemies, a rather politically charged mission considering the state’s message of peacefulness and stability. This association sprang up in the wake of the 2003 attacks to promote the unity of Moroccans against terrorism.5 Their motto Ma T9ish Bladi (Don’t Touch My Country) in Darija6 is written in Arabic script accessible

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Fig. 3.1  Logo of the association Matkich Bladi. Photo by Author

to any literate person in Morocco. Though founders of the movement are unidentified, Amanda Rogers (2012: 465) suggests that it emanated from the upper echelons of state. My attempt to trace more information on this group’s members and their campaigns has been as unsuccessful as Rogers’ over several years of research. The Association Matkich Bladi does not have an official website or social media profile on Facebook or Twitter, but its image is often found on billboards around the country. During my first year of fieldwork in 2011, I often found the image on billboards and other places; the example shown in Fig. 3.1 was found stuck on an ice-cream van in the northern village of Assilah. The absence of information, both online and offline, its constant public presence through the ubiquitousness of its logo acting as a reminder of its message of unity, and its rather obscure organizational structure suggests that the association is a political tool for specific campaigns. Matkich Bladi has been publicly vocal in three instances, during 2003, 2010 and 2011, helping the state to counter the irruption of social dissent. After

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its birth in 2003 in protest at the terrorist attacks, the group organized an event on November 28, 2010 to mourn the Moroccans killed in Layoune after the confrontations between Moroccan soldiers and members of the pro-independence movement Polisario. Then, on June 26, 2011 it organized another demonstration in support of the new constitution and against the February 20 (F20) pro-democracy movement. In February 2011, they had released a press statement refusing to participate in the pro-democracy demonstration planned for February 20.7 Matkich Bladi can be understood as considering any form of dissent as divisive to the nation’s unity. In 2003, with the terrorist attacks, the organization glossed over the realities of Moroccan youth and the causes of their radicalization. In 2010, it presented the Sahara activists as divisive, without a cause and with the aim of destroying the country. This was also the case in 2011 in its stance against the F20.8 While other similar associations like Matkich Wladi (Don’t Touch My Children) have participated in demonstrations against the state (for example a protest against the pardoning of a Spanish-Iraqi paedophile by the king), Matkich Bladi has only ever supported official narratives, which certainly seems to sustain Rogers’ (2012: 465) claims that they are in fact state sponsored. The symbol of the khamsa drawn in red to resemble the colour of the Moroccan flag is an allegory to transmit feelings of love and pride of the nation and unity against a ‘perceived’ enemy or danger, and most importantly, to encourage uncritical perceptions of the state and its power. The danger behind this message is that any acts of criticism outside the limits established by the regime—as Cavatorta and Dalmasso (2013: 132) warn us—entail not only accusations of opposition, but of danger and betrayal. As expressed by rapper L7a9ed in his song “Klab Dawla” (Dogs of the State 2010): “and when we talk about our rights, you call us rebels” (W mli kandwiw 3la 7a9na kat reddouna msakhit).9 The red khamsa, like the recurrent motto, Allah, El Watan, El Malik (God, the Nation, the King), transmits a particular vision that secures the state’s dominant power and an ideologically charged meaning intended to curb dissenting voices by portraying them as enemies of the nation. The Association Matkich Bladi is thus part of the state’s strategy to directly create or support the creation of civil society groups that portray an image of a liberal society and free association, while at the same time promoting the state’s agenda and quelling dissent (Cavatorta and Dalmasso 2013: 123). Despite the political use of the khamsa, one may argue that the song “Matkich Bladi” is only understood as a firm opposition to terrorism. The

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song was repeatedly played again on Hit Radio in May 2011 as a response to another terrorist attack on Café Argana, an establishment in the iconic Jmaa El Fnaa Square in Marrakech. The music that followed this song, however, situates “Matkich Bladi” as only the first of a series of songs in Fnaïre’s repertoire that focus on patriotism and a derogatory portrayal of critical voices. Other examples include “Yed el Henna” (The Hand of Henna 2007), “Tajine Loughat” (Tajine of Languages 2007) and “Hamra w 7adra” (Red and Green 2011). On the group’s social media Fnaïre state that they “don’t hesitate through national and patriotic spirit to develop and offer new and original tracks associated with the country”.10 The word ‘patriotic’ is repeated three times in the short description of the group, and it appears twice together with the word ‘national’. Though Fnaïre see patriotism as a tool of engagement with the nation, their repetition of the same tropes in the songs that came out after “Matkich Bladi” (2003), like those recycled in “Hamra w 7adra” (2011), suggest otherwise. Fnaïre’s fidelity and reproduction of the state’s discourse distances the group from the claimed profound engagement with Moroccan society, yet this song opened up Moroccan audiences to rap music as it engaged with significant local events. The popularization of this song has allowed the group to pursue an artistic career in the music scene.

Songs of Unity It is well documented that nations construct enemies in order to justify violence or aggression against them (Searle-White 2001: 16). As Ernesto Laclau argues, the enemy is a discursive construction used by political movements to divide the “‘people’ against an enemy through the construction of a social frontier” (Laclau 2005: 47). This narrative is supported by politicians who use patriotism to justify wars and suppress dissent (Shohat and Stam 2007: 297). In the US, the right-wing narrative frames patriotism as designed to “turn neighbor against neighbor, one half of the country against the other half, all calculated as a way to win elections” (Shohat and Stam 2007: 293). In this political use, patriotism emerges more as a weapon of exclusion rather than unity (Shohat and Stam 2007: 293). In Morocco, patriotism is also a tool employed to define insiders, but more significantly, to depict the enemy. Patriotic rap songs praise the country’s unity; however, they are in fact dividing the country in two: those who support the status quo, that is, patriots, and those who criticize it, that is, the enemies.

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Earlier it was argued that the Makhzen capitalized on the terrorist attacks of 2003 to contain the rise of the PJD by framing the attack as religious radicalism and not a consequence of socio-economic inequalities. The state support of rappers who produced uncritical rap songs since then paid off, when popular rappers sided with the state and produced songs of unity to suppress protests in the Sahara region in November 2010 and the pro-democracy demonstrations or the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ in 2011. These two events and the rap songs in reaction to them show the blurred lines between dissent and resistance, patriotism and co-option. While the struggle for territorial unity in the Sahara continues to be a cause that unites most Moroccans and is a pillar of the national consciousness, the 2011 pro-demonstrations divided the country between those who perceived them as superfluous and those who thought of them as necessary. In October 2010, previous to the celebrations of the anniversary of the Green March on November 6, protesters for the movement for the Independence of the Sahara built a new camp outside Layoune, the capital of the disputed Sahara region. On November 8, 2010 clashes erupted when Moroccan gendarmes entered and dismantled the camp. The clash resulted in the death of five Moroccans and a Polisario member according to some sources,11 and 11 Moroccan officers and two civilians according to other sources.12 These events prompted a major demonstration on November 28, 2010 in Casablanca in support of the ‘Moroccanness’ of the Sahara organized by the Association Matkich Bladi to honour the dead in Layoune. After the 2010 events in Layoune, pictures of Fnaïre members posing alongside demonstrators were posted on their official Facebook profile. Fnaïre had already referenced the Sahara issue in the video clip of “Yed el Henna”, in which the group recreated the Green March in a video that showcased a varied group of people as a way to represent the diversity of Moroccan identity, and also included the Moroccan flag and a picture of King Mohammed VI. The November 2010 demonstration united rappers and other artists across the country in support of Moroccan unity, and appeared at the end of the music video for the song “Maghreb 1 Machi 2” (Morocco 1 not 2, 2011) by rapper Othman, a member of H-Kayne and rapper M-Snoop. The chorus of the song tells Moroccans that the country must remain united: Morocco one not two Maghreb  wa7d machi juj one land not two ard wa7da machi juj

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one nation not two sha3b wa7d machi juj better one united nation mzyan wahd munta7ad This unity, the song claims, must be under the leadership of the king: One two, not two, one people One two, machi two, one sha3b we’ve only got one country 3andna ghi, one blad we got only one king 3andna ghi, one malik he is number one huwa number one those who want to mess around get run over by trains  lli bgha lkhwad darbo train The repetition of “one” is explicit, and reinforced by each of the rappers who raise their index finger during the video clip. Othman and M-Snoop use the gesture at the beginning of the music video “Maghreb 1 Machi 2” after both rappers repeat the chorus and M-Snoop holds up the Moroccan flag. In the final scene of the clip all members of the rap group H-Kayne and M-Snoop repeat the gesture while staged behind the Moroccan flag. This sign of unity also appears on the cover of Fnaïre’s album Yed el Henna (2007), and at the end of another music video called “A la Marocaine” (2011) by Hatim of H-Kayne. These rappers recreate the collective feeling of belonging to Morocco mediated by the flag and reinforced by the performative gesture “one”.13 The sign is thus a reminder of a collective memory as imagined by the state. Omar Sayyed, member of Nass El Ghiwane, Don Bigg, Oum, Muslim, and members from Casa Crew appear in pictures at the end of “Maghreb 1 Machi 2” making the same sign with their hands. Omar Sayyed and Muslim—whose musical production has also denounced uncritical patriotism (see Chap. 4)—featuring in “Maghreb 1 Machi 2” indicates that the Sahara conflict is a sensitive issue, and intimates that the majority of Moroccans believe the region falls within its national boundaries. The delicacy of the Sahara dispute in Morocco is manifested by the fact that any opinion that differs from the official narrative (that the Sahara is part of the country) is considered crossing the ‘red lines’. In other words, questioning Morocco’s territorial right to the Sahara region is considered an attack on the nation’s unity. The ‘red lines’ construct the national enemy as a useful way to thwart any act of dissent. While rappers like Muslim are highly critical of the political system‚ he agrees with the majority of the Moroccan population and the State that Morocco

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has a right over the Sahara region. In this sense, defending the right to sovereignty of the Sahara is a significant event, even for those groups that are today recognized as the champions of the revolutionary song in Morocco. The group JilJilala, whose founder was a member of Nass El Ghiwane, created a well-known song called “Laayoune Aynia” (Layoune are My Eyes) in 1976 to glorify the Green March. The release date of “Maghreb 1 Machi 2” in February 2011 suggests that it was a patriotic response to attempts by the Sahara independence movement to divide the country, but also to contain the social unrest caused by the events in Tunisia and Egypt. These events picked up in Morocco in an organized demonstration on February 20, 2011 widely disseminated through social and political networks and on social media during the previous weeks. An article reproduced by the now defunct French newspaper Le Post on February 19, 201114 praises the song and the rapper M-Snoop, describing him as one of the artists most engaged in the national cause: “M-Snoop is one of these young artists [who has been] convinced to join the anti-revolution ‘front of patriots’ that sings praises to the glory of the mother Nation and in honour of the King our Sir Mohammed VI of Morocco.” While Polisario is a traitor, the rappers who appear in the music video “awake profound feelings of the Moroccan national unity” (Le Post February 19 2011). The fact that both the song “Maghreb 1 Machi 2” and this article were released in February 2011 indicates a moment of tension in which the unity of Moroccan rappers in the territorial dispute of the Sahara serves the state to associate the menace to territorial integrity, an issue that unites Moroccans, with the pro-democracy February 20 demonstrations, which far from threatening Morocco’s unity were aimed at improving the country. By shaping both events through the lenses of the enemy, the state was successful in containing protests that challenged the status quo. In the weeks before the launch of the February 20 Movement amidst the 2011 demonstrations around the country, its supporters were subjected to a smear campaign by government ministers and official media outlets (Bennani-Chraïbi and Jeghllaly 2012: 877; Férnandez Molina 2011: 438). The Minister of Youth and Sports Moncef Belkhatyat declared that Polisario was behind the movement,15 thus connecting the programmed demonstrations directly to the Sahara dispute, and identifying the movement as a foreign force seeking to split up Morocco. The campaign accused supporters of being atheists or Islamists; agents who sought to destroy the country’s unity, members of the Polisario or Sahara

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separatists. State media summarily portrayed the February 20 demonstrations’ organizers as “‘[t]raitors’ who question the foundations of the nation (God, the nation and the King), [as] ‘marginalized’ who transgress its values (converts to Christianity, ‘atheists’, those who break the fast, ‘homosexuals’)” (Bennani-Chraïbi and Jeghllaly 2012: 878). How the Makhzen constructed the enemy of Morocco can thus be seen to coincide with the demonization of those who question the official narrative of the nation and transgress its ‘red lines’.

Rap, Media, and the February 20 Protests An article in TelQuel (February 12, 2011: 19–25) connected the Sahara uprisings of 2010 and the February 20 demonstrations in an issue dedicated to Moroccan patriotism, which also mentioned the song “Maghreb 1 Machi 2” and the issue of patriotic rap. As the magazine describes, in order to show pride in their country, youth appropriated national symbols, such as placing the image of the king in Facebook profile pictures. This king as a symbol of unity was used by a campaign at the time called Touche Pas à Mon Roi (Don’t Touch My King) that emerged as a counterattack to the call for demonstrations on February 20. Placing Mohammed VI at the centre of the dispute reinforced the idea that the protesters aimed to destroy national unity and the king’s legitimacy. However, the intention behind the February 20 demonstrations was not related to the king. Their demands were political and socio-economic, including calls for better political and social rights, free education, lower prices for basic products, and decent wages (Férnandez Molina 2011: 436–437). These demands were, however, confronted with accusations of aspiring to divide the nation, which were far from being a new strategy to contain opposition. In order to avoid the connection with Sahara pro-independence supporters, organizers of the demonstration changed the date, which was originally planned for February 27, 2011. This date is connected to Polisario, as it was on February 27, 1976 when Polisario announced the independence of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, an announcement that was followed by armed struggle against Morocco and Mauritania, and it remains a politically significant date. To further thwart the attempted demonization of the February 20 movement, demonstrations on February 20, 2011 and those that followed all made sure to include Moroccan flags to avoid allegations of being unpatriotic.

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As Younes Belghazi explained: “When they [F20] were in a protest and there weren’t flags of Morocco, this was a tool of propaganda to say ‘look, they are with no flag’. So we needed to have a flag to say ‘we are Moroccans’” (Belghazi 2013, Interview, March 18). In spite of Belghazi’s affirmation, the use of the flag by the F20 was minor when compared to other demonstrations such as the one in Casablanca that followed the events in Layoune in 2010. Reaction to the demonstration is found in the article in TelQuel mentioned above (February 12, 2011: 19–25) and in a later article focused on the F20 entitled “Nous Y Sommes” (TelQuel March 26, 2011: 19–30). The articles reflect a change in the magazine’s editorial line that coincided with the departure of Ahmed Benchemsi as editor-in-chief and the outbreak of protests in North Africa in December 2010. Despite supporters’ efforts to emphasize the Moroccanness of the F20, official propaganda affected even the narratives of a magazine like TelQuel seen as pushing socio-political boundaries. TelQuel’s special issue on patriotism reflects the absence of a clear editorial line and fear of censorship at a time of contention between the F20 and the state. The first article (TelQuel February 12, 2011: 19–25) thus refers to the youth from Touche Pas à Mon Roi as ‘patriots’, reinforcing the idea that patriotism in Morocco is conditional on abstention from any criticism or questioning of the status quo. In addition, the article makes prominent use of the Moroccan flag to illustrate its patriotic theme. These symbols proved to be a strong weapon that left no space for those protesting to claim for alternative constructions of the nation. The emergence of the F20 brought again into focus the narrative of the Moroccan ‘exception’ (Bennani-Chraïbi and Jeghllaly 2012: 880). In an article in the Diplomatic Courier (November 11, 2011) entitled “The Moroccan Exception”,16 former US Ambassador for Morocco Marc Ginsberg (1994–1998) argues that the king has been able to make out of Morocco an exception to the region, unveiling “a remarkable and ingenious response to the attack” (referring to the 2003 Casablanca bombings). Ginsberg further claims that when the king was confronted with the F20, “rather than retreat from the change called for by the February 20th Movement, he fully embraced it gaining even more legitimacy as an agent of change in his country”. Laila Lalami refuted Ginsberg’s argument in The Nation (September 12, 2011),17 writing that the ‘exception’ narrative was being used to combat the power of the F20. The fact that the F20 was allowed to get set up, organize

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and demonstrate works to confirm the Moroccan ‘exception’ because, according to this narrative, Morocco has been able to distinguish itself as a democratic country, as opposed to its neighbours, where social movements are not repressed. The narrative of exceptionalism, prompted to neutralize the threat of the F20 to the status quo, claimed that Morocco was already undergoing democratic changes and therefore such a movement was unnecessary and redundant. The Association Matkich Bladi reappeared at this time to aid the Makhzen in its campaign against the F20 supporters. Matkich Bladi called on their members to not demonstrate on February 20, saying that it considered the demonstration “an unacceptable mimicry with the events that are occurring in the Maghreb and Middle East”.18 In their press release of February 18, Matkich Bladi stated its support of the Tunisian and Egyptian youth in their demonstrations as part of the MENA uprisings taking place that year that led to the falling of both countries’ autocratic regimes. However, the press release also emphasized the Moroccan exception, as Morocco is claimed to have embarked in the reforms 11 years before. As Matkich Bladi maintains in this document, the Moroccan state has pursued “[n] otably the creation of the Equity and Reconciliation Commission (IER), the overture of the public space to freedom of speech, the reform of the Moudawwana, the access to housing, the reinforcement of the institutions…”.19 For this reason, Matkich Bladi perceives the F20 as irrelevant to Morocco, since the group engages with the official narrative of change under the leadership of King Mohammed VI. The narrative of change towards democracy is however employed by almost all MENA countries which have implemented liberal and democratic reforms in order to bestow on their nations a democratizing and liberal image. Nevertheless, the result is that the state remains in control of political power and unaccountable to ordinary citizens (Cavatorta and Dalmasso 2013: 122). Following the official narrative initiated by the state and reproduced by the Association Matkich Bladi, rapper Don Bigg produced the song “Mabghitch” (I Don’t Want, 2011) to directly attack the F20 in the same terms as the state. In this song, Don Bigg accuses the F20 of being made up of fast-breakers, atheists and Islamists, portraying them as the Hizb al Himar (Party of Donkeys). Don Bigg asks, “Who will represent the people?” (chkoun li ghay mettal cha3b?). For the rappers, these are not real Muslims who eat during the sacred month of Ramadan and engage in radical Islam: “Is it these four boys who eat during Ramadan

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like it was a joke?” (wach 4 dial l’brahech li wakline ramdan la3b?); And, “a bunch of Islamists that use religion in a fake manner” (wella rba3a dial l7aya kay rekbo 3la dine batel). While before the attack was on the ‘nation’, now the idea is to divide the country in two focusing on another of the three pillars: Islam. The performance of the dominant postcolonial Moroccan national consciousness appears at the end of the clip, when Bigg points to the sky while saying “Allah” (God), then appears with an illuminated star and says “El Watan” (the Nation) and finishes by flipping a coin with the face of the king and sings “El Malik” (the King). Don Bigg used national symbols again later that year at a concert organized on September 11, 2011 in Casablanca. The concert ended with the national anthem and the flag of Morocco displayed on a large screen.20 The video of this finale was released on YouTube on February 21, 2014, only a day after the anniversary of the first demonstration in 2011, emphasizing his continuing aversion to the F20 and confirming his state-aligned agenda. In 2013, during an interview for the television programme “Mais encore?” (But Still) on 2M, one of the state-owned TV channels, the host asked Don Bigg if his problem with the F20 was because he thought the group was attacking the country’s motto, “Allah, El Watan, El Malik”. Don Bigg claimed that even if the threat posed by the F20 was initially unclear, it eventually attested to be for everything but Allah, El Watan, El Malik. After the demonstrations, Hatim Bensalha from H-Kayne, in collaboration with Sif Lssane another member of the group,21 and French Moroccan rapper Ridfabuleux released the song “A la Marocaine” (2011) with patriotic aesthetics. The lyrics of “A la Marocaine” further emphasize national unity, repeating the title or lines such as “we are all the same, à la marocaine” (On est tous, les mêmes à la marocaine). The track is conceived as an ego-trip single, which denotes a type of rap song where the rapper evidences his/her value in terms of finance, sexuality, music, and so forth, and seeks to differentiate himself/herself from other rappers. While normally in an ego-trip the rapper individually challenges another rapper, here the ego-trip, paired with the chromatic use of the colours of the flag, serves to prove national superiority as members of a nation; the ego-trip is no longer for the individual but for the national group. When I asked Bensalha who he was fighting against in his lyrics, he acknowledged the idea of national unity behind the song, but framed it as a way to assert Moroccan rap as part of the national identity and not within the national social and political context of the time:

76  C. Moreno Almeida The fight, yes it’s a fight because, as I told you, it’s a fight against world rap. You know what I mean? We come to defend Moroccan’s rap. And because it’s very technical and very “rap”, we put a [boxing] ring because it’s a real combat, it’s Moroccan rap against the others. It’s not à la marocaine that we’re going to only say tea, couscous … it’s à la marocaine 2012. (Bensalha 2011, Interview, July 2)

Visually, the music video is shot almost throughout in a dark space saturating the colour correction to showcase the nearly exclusive dichromatic images in red and green. The national colours are embedded in every shot of the clip of “A la Marocaine”, where red and green appear in t-shirts, caps and the title of the song. The video shows a boxing ring into which the three rappers, Hatim, Othman and Ridfabuleux, walk. A big Moroccan flag is displayed behind them. The rappers and some actors are wearing clothes with the Moroccan flag, including the lead singer Hatim who reveals it when he opens up his leather jacket. The use of dichromatic garments reinforces the idea that flags hung behind a performer serve to turn the background into the space of the homeland (Billig 1995: 43). Here, the flag is in the front and exhibited in its totality, but also fragmented as part of the video title and in the colours of garments. The music video is thus turned into a space where national unity is re-enacted and empowered. The boxing ring turns the video into a fight to perpetuate this unity, an idea further emphasized at the end of the video when the three rappers raise their right arms and point their index finger up towards the Moroccan flag. The colours also serve Hatim as rhymes in his lyrics: “You become red with anger, you’ll become green with rage” (Tu deviens rouge de colère, tu deviens vert de rage). The rapper had already used the national colours in his lyrics as part of the chorus of H-Kayne’s first hit “Issawa Style” (2006) to claim that their rap was fully Moroccan. In the rhymes for “A la Marocaine”, Hatim also mentions the khamsa as part of his attack on other rappers, employing a common phrase in Morocco to protect himself from evil: “I give you a big khamsa wkhamous in your eyes” (Je te lâche un gros khamssa w khmouss dans tes yeux). Together with the flag and the khamsa, territorial disputes over the Sahara, Ceuta and Melilla22 appear in the chorus to depict the sense of struggle over what is considered Moroccan territory: We hit the clubs On défouraille dans les boites à la marocaine  à la marocaine

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we are chaotic in shops On fout le zbeul dans les boites à la marocaine  à la marocaine warn your friends that we have landed  Préviens tes potes qu’on débarque à la marocaine  à la marocaine hey à la marocaine, à la marocaine  hey à la marocaine, à la marocaine The sound is heavy it’s pure Le son est lourd c’est de la pure à la marocaine  à la marocaine we pass it around at full speed On fait nétour a toute allure à la marocaine  à la marocaine Sahara, Ceuta and Melilla  Sahra Sebta w Melilia à la marocaine  à la marocaine hey à la marocaine, à la marocaine  hey à la marocaine, à la marocaine While the song resorts to a number of strategies to remember the nation, it surprisingly does it in French, the language of the colonizer. Although the Constitution does not mention French as an official language, it has remained as the language of the elites and is rarely used by other than the French-educated urban privileged. French thus has a limited capacity to reach Moroccan youth, particularly the lower socioeconomic classes, and thus limited means to relate to this youth. The aim of recreating the nation is therefore curtailed by the use of a foreign language with, however, a socio-economic significance. The inconsistency between the language in “A la Marocaine” and the message comes across as a lack of socio-economic awareness, devaluing its power as a song of unity. In times of crisis, these songs not only are a ‘reminder’ of the nation, but serve as a tool to discourage any initiative that aims at altering the national imaginary. Criticisms are not censured, but capitalized on to construct a threat to the nation, an enemy. Thus, dissent is curbed by equating any protest with long-time enemies of the nation, namely Polisario, atheists, and so on. Once one takes a closer look at patriotic songs, however, unity becomes problematic. Singing in French, or excluding women, as the following chapter will highlight, create a nation that is far from the ideal picture imagined by the nationalist movement in the struggle for independence. Furthermore, while patriotic themes have helped to free rap from criticisms by some, they have also granted groups like Fnaïre and H-Kayne access to the public arena—including

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participating in the largest music festivals in the country, having radio stations broadcast their songs, and reaping the economic gains from each. The next chapter examines the idea that some rappers have deliberately maintained a patriotic discourse as part of their repertoire for ulterior reasons besides showing love of the nation. In it I will discuss the stagnation of narratives of patriotism, but also of resistance, into easy to sell ready-made lyrical structures.

Notes

1. Frente Polisario (Polisario Front), also known as Polisario, is an abbreviation of Frente Popular de Liberación de Saguía el Hamra y Río de Oro (Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguía el Hamra and Río de Oro). 2. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ mo.html [Accessed February 15, 2017]. 3.  http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religionpolitics-society-interfaith-relations/ [Accessed February 15, 2017]. 4.  The name of Fatima was given after the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad. 5. http://yabiladi.com/articles/details/3765/casablanca-matkich-bladiorganise-manifestation.html. Accessed February 15, 2017. 6. For consistency, I use the regular Darija transliteration system and not the simplified version used for the name of the Association Matkich Bladi. 7. http://www.yabiladi.com/img/content/docs/Com-de-presse-touchepas-a-mon-pays_18-02-2011.pdf. Accessed February 15, 2017. 8. http://yabiladi.com/articles/details/3765/casablanca-matkich-bladiorganise-manifestation.html. Accessed February 15, 2017. 9. For more on L7a9ed see Moreno-Almeida, 2017. 10. This text appeared on www.myspace.com/fnairemaroc. Accessed December 6, 2012, however, this page has been modified and the text cited here no longer appears on Fnaïre’s myspace profile. 11.  http://fr.euronews.com/2010/11/09/violents-affrontements-a-laayoune-sahara-occidental/. Accessed February 15, 2017. 12. h ttp://www.hrw.org/news/2010/11/26/western-sahara-beatingsabuse-moroccan-security-forces. Accessed February 15, 2017. 13. This gesture reminds of the index finger position performed by Muslims at the end of the prayer to assert the uniqueness of God. 14. This article was re-posted on “Last Night in Orient”, a blog that deals with Moroccan and Arabic music and can be accessed at: http://musique. arabe.over-blog.com/article-m-snoop-le-rap-marocain-a-la-rescousse-de-lunite-nationale-marocaine-67570005.html. Accessed February 15, 2017.

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15.  http://www.bladi.net/moncef-belkhayat-polisario.html. Accessed February 15, 2017. 16.  http://www.diplomaticourier.com/news/regions/middle-east/312-themoroccan-exception. Accessed February 15, 2017. 17. h ttp://www.thenation.com/article/162967/moroccan-exception. Accessed February 15, 2017. 18. http://www.bladi.net/matquich-bladi-marche-20-fevrier.html. Accessed February 15, 2017. 19.  See full press release at: http://www.yabiladi.com/img/content/docs/ Com-de-presse-touche-pas-a-mon-pays_18-02-2011.pdf. Accessed February 15, 2017. 20. The video is available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUIYXq-NIC7Y. Accessed February 15, 2017. 21. Although this song is claimed as a solo for Hatim, Sif Lssane and Othman (both from H-Kayne) feature in the song and video clip as well. While Sif Lssane raps in the third verse, Othman participates in the video clip. Therefore, I include songs in which the rest of the group contributes to the final production even though they are considered solos. Othman’s “Maghreb 1 Mach 2” is a similar case, where all the members of H-Kayne feature in the video clip. 22. Ceuta and Melilla are two Spanish cities geographically located on the northern Moroccan coast. Although Morocco claims sovereign rights over both cities, these belong to Spain, which asserts they are integral part of the Spanish territory (Howe 2005: 314).

References Abu-Lughod, L. 2005. Dramas of Nationhood: The Politics of Television in Egypt. Chicago: University of California Press. Achrati, A. 2003. Hand and Foot Symbolisms: From Rock Art to the Qur’an. Arabica 50 (4): 464–500. Anderson, B. 1991. Imagined Communities. London: Verso Books. Baron, B. 2004. Egypt as a Woman: Nationalism, Gender, and Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press. Barrington, L.W. 2006. Nationalism & Independence. In After Independence: Making and Protecting the Nation in Postcolonial and Postcommunist States, ed. L.W. Barrington, 3–30. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Benmehdi H. 2007. Interview with Fnaïre, a Symbol of Traditional Rap in Morocco. Magharebia, Casablanca, 28 September. Available from http:// magharebia.com/en_GB/articles/awi/features/2007/09/28/feature-03. Bennani-Chraïbi, M., and M. Jeghllaly. 2012. La dynamique protestataire du movement du 20 Février à Casablanca. Revue Française de Science Politque 62: 867–894.

80  C. Moreno Almeida Billig, M. 1995. Banal Nationalism. Los Angeles: Sage. Boum, A. 2012. Festivalizing Dissent in Morocco. Middle East Report 263 (Summer): 22–25. Burke, E.I. 1998. Theorizing the Histories of Colonialism and Nationalism in the Arab Maghrib. Arab Studies Quarterly 20 (2): 1–12. Canetti, E. 1978. Crowds and Power. New York: Continuum International. Cavatorta, F., and E. Dalmasso. 2013. The Emerging Power of Civil Society? The Huma Rights Doctrine. In Contemporary Morocco: State, Politics and Society under Mohammed VI, ed. B. Maddy-Weitzman and D. Zisenwine, 120–135. Routledge: Milton Park, Abingdon. Combs-Schilling, M.E. 1999. Performing Monarchy, Staging the Nation. In In the Shadow of the Sultan: Culture, Power and Politics in Morocco, ed. R.  Bourqia and M.E. Combs-Shilling, 176–214. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Connor, W. 1990. When is a nation? Ethnic and Racial Studies 13 (1): 92–103. Daadaoui, M. 2011. Moroccan Monarchy and the Islamist Challenge: Maintaining Makhzen Power. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Durkheim, E. 1915. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, USA. Edensor, T. 2002. National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life. Oxford: Berg. El Maarouf, M.D. 2013. Nomadictates: Staging Roots and Routes in The Essaouira Gnawa Festival. Globalizations 11 (2): 1–17. Entelis, J.P. 1989. Culture and Counterculture in Moroccan Politics. Boulder: Westview Press. Férnandez Molina, I. 2011. The Monarchy vs. the 20 February Movement: Who Holds the Reins of Political Change in Morocco? Mediterranean Politics 16 (3): 435–441. Forrest, J.B. 2006. Nationalism in Postcolonial States. In After Independence: Making and Protecting the Nation in Postcolonial and Postcommunist States, ed. L.W. Barrington, 33–44. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Hammoudi, A. 1997. Master and Disciple: The Cultural Foundations of Moroccan Authoritarianism. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press. Howe, M. 2005. Morocco: The Islamist Awakening and Other Challenges. New York: Oxford University Press. Laclau, E. 2005. Populism: What’s in a Name? In Populism and the Mirror of Democracy, ed. F. Panizza, 32–49. London: Verso. Lawrence, A. 2012. Rethinking Moroccan Nationalism, 1930–1944. The Journal of North African Studies 17 (3): 475–490. Leveau, R. 1997. Morocco at the Crossroads. Mediterranean Politics 2 (2): 95–113.

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Li, Q., and M.B. Brewer. 2004. What Does It Mean to Be an American? Patriotism, Nationalism, and American Identity After 9/11. Political Psychology 25 (5): 727–739. Maghraoui, A. 2002. Depoliticization in Morocco. Journal of Democracy 13 (4): 24–32. Massad, J. 2005. Liberating Songs: Palestine Put to Music. In Palestine, Israel, and the Politics of Popular Culture, ed. R. Stein and S. Ted, 176–201. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Merskin, D. 2007. Flagging Patriotism: The Myth of Old Glory. Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche 1 (4): 11–16. Mosse, G.L. 1982. Nationalism and Respectability: Normal and Abnormal Sexuality in the Nineteenth Century. Journal of Contemporary History 17 (2): 221–246. Rogers, A.E. 2012. Warding off Terrorism and Revolution: Moroccan Religious Pluralism, National Identity and the Politics of Visual Culture. The Journal of North African Studies 17: 455–474. San Martin, P. 2007. Nationalism, Identity and Citizenship in the Western Sahara. The Journal of North African Studies 10 (3–4): 565–592. Sater, J.N. 2010. Morocco: Challenges to Tradition and Modernity. London: Routledge. Schaebler, B. 2007. Writing the Nation in the Arabic-Speaking World, Nationally and Transnationally. In Writing the Nation: A Global Perspective, ed. S. Berger, 179–196. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Schatz, R.T., and H. Lavine. 2007. Waving the Flag: National Symbolism, Social Identity, and Political Engagement. Political Psychology 28 (3): 329–355. Schatz, R.T., E. Staub, and H. Lavine. 1999. On the Varieties of National Attachment: Blind Versus Constructive Patriotism. Political Psychology 20 (1): 151–174. Schumann, A. 2013. Songs of a New Era: Popular Music and Political Expression in the Ivorian Crisis. African Affairs 112 (448): 440–459. Searle-White, J. 2001. The Psychology of Nationalism. New York: Palgrave. Shohat, E., and R. Stam. 2007. Flagging Patriotism: Crises of Narcissism and Anti-Americanism. New York: Routledge. Smith, A.D. 1998. Nationalism and Modernism: A Critical Survey of Recent Theories of Nations and Nationalism. Contemporary Sociology. London: Routledge. Stenner, D. 2012. Networking for Independence: The Moroccan Nationalist Movement and its Global Campaign against French Colonialism. The Journal of North African Studies 17 (4): 573–594. Stora, B. 2003. Algeria/Morocco: The Passions of the Past. Representations of the Nation that Unite and Divide. The Journal of North African Studies 8 (1): 14–34. Storey, J. 2003. Inventing Popular Culture: From Folklore to Globalization. Oxford: Blackwell.

82  C. Moreno Almeida Willis, P., and M. Maarouf. 2010. The Islamic Spirit of Capitalism: Moroccan Islam and its Transferable Cultural Schemas and Values. Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 22 (3): 1–45. Zisenwine, D. 2010. The Emergence of Nationalist Politics in Morocco: The Rise of the Independence Party and the Struggle Against Colonialism after World War II. London: I.B. Tauris.

CHAPTER 4

Branding Patriotism, Commodifying Resistance

Democratization studies have tended to keep much of the work on MENA countries’ politics as part of a movement towards democratic governance or authoritarianism (Cavatorta and Durac 2011: 1). The idea that these countries are on a constant path to democracy, however, serves leaders, including Morocco’s monarchy, to legitimize their privileged position as the only guarantors of the country’s political stability and economic development. The narrative of development constantly features in many rap songs as part of optimistic accounts that describe Morocco’s beauty and hospitality, and command youth to contribute to its development. Artists that engage in such themes are in turn granted a privileged place in the music scene. The fact that this works well for state propaganda is not surprising. This exchange discourages the rich body of rap songs that address themes more relatable to the majority of young people in the country. Some artists and cultural actors, however, and in particular rappers like Muslim and Mobydick, have expressed through songs a negative view of these optimistic rap songs, devoting part of their work to denouncing the lack of self-criticism towards the country they are living in. Songs of development have served well certain rappers who have become well-paid artists booked for concerts, and hired for advertisement campaigns or to act as representatives of the Moroccan youth. Criticisms on turning social and political songs into products for consumption are not unique to patriotic themes. Some rappers have turned © The Author(s) 2017 C. Moreno Almeida, Rap Beyond Resistance, Pop Music, Culture and Identity, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-60183-0_4

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to Political narratives with a capital-P in an effort to appeal to a young audience that is searching for an alternative rap to optimistic and uncritical themes and critical groups of Moroccan society. While some have succeeded in reaching and relating to the audience, this chapter will examine the case of Chaht Man who has turned his rebelliousness into a commodity perceived by some as empty of political engagement. Songs that align with the state’s narratives and songs of resistance may therefore be interpreted as a commercial strategy. Only an in-depth study of these songs and their context can determine how they are received in a local context, both as redundant songs empty of meaning and as clichéd voices of dissent.

Sponsoring a Utopia Rap music, especially within non-Western contexts, is often perceived by commentators as a protest tool (Baker 2005: 372). In Morocco, however, a significant number of songs have been devoted to presenting the country as a utopian nation with a bright future instead of reading the political and socio-economic situation of the country with a critical gaze. This optimism is particularly evident, although not exclusively, in the work of Fnaïre and H-Kayne. Fnaïre brings up the narrative of development (in Arabic tanmiyya) in their song “Yed el Henna” (The Hand of Henna, 2007). The song and music video gives name to their first album published after the hit “Matkich Bladi”. Aesthetically, the rappers’ development of what they call taqlidi (traditional) rap results in songs that incorporate Arabic and Moroccan sounds. Quality wise, the sounds and images of “Yed el Henna” show a noticeable improvement from their previous music video. Thematically the song rescues the symbol of the khamsa to claim the need to national unity under the protection of the king. Despite the repetition of national symbols, the theme of this song also incorporates narratives of youth participation and national development linked to the neoliberal economic project. To be sure, in this song, inviting youth to participate does not translate into the empowerment of youth political voice, but it is part of a superficial image of ­democratization. In the first line of the song “Yed el Henna” the rappers ask their audience to “listen, listen dear brother, stand up to develop” (Semmi semmi khouya l3ziz noud tnammi). In this song, the development of the country and its progress requires the hand of henna, a symbol that Fnaïre uses to signify the king:

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It’s clear that my country has the right bayn 7e99i fbladi with the hand of henna bayn byedd l henna Always pride for my country Dayem 3azzi fbladi always with the hand of henna dayem byedd l henna Oh Moroccans, you promise me and I promise you 3ahdni ou n3ahdak ya maghribi with the hand of henna byed l henna With the desire that we participate in the development  B  e nniya nssahmou f tanmiya with the hand of henna byedd l henna Contrary to their previous song “Matkich Bladi”, the khamsa here is explicitly used as and transformed into a feminine hand, as henna is only found on female hands, as a symbol of the nation. In the first scenes, a member of Fnaïre shows the palm of their hand while women are making henna, to re-enact the beauty of a traditional life. In Morocco, hennaed hands have become a symbol for contemporary fine artists, a synecdoche for national identity in their search for sacred materials and local symbolism (Rogers 2012: 457). In this sense, although the nation appears personified as a male or a female, in the Middle East the female figure is predominant (Baron 2004: 57). Moreover, the nation is often feminized when the nation itself takes a sacred character and when it requires great acts of sacrifice, as suggested by the cases of Joan of Arc, Britannia or Marianne (Delanty and O’Mahony 2002: 19). Therefore, the hand of henna and the khamsa are both related in their representation of the Moroccan nation as symbols of unity. The power of the hand and its ability to protect the nation resonates the king’s baraka (blessing) (Daadaoui 2011: 4; Sater 2010: 6), or spiritual force (Willis and Maarouf 2010: 7). The belief that the king, who belongs to the prophetic lineage, will inherit the baraka is deeply rooted in the Moroccan cultural imagination (Willis and Maarouf 2010: 7). Therefore, the hand of henna symbolizes the king’s power to protect all: “my hands in your hands, our king is your protector” (yddiya f ydikoum malikna hamikoum). This message of power and divinity of the king is transmitted through the music video by showing the picture of King Mohammed VI in the middle of a crowd of people representing Morocco. The hands, however, also represent the need for Moroccans to stay together and develop the country. National unity is represented in the

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music video in the form of the Green March, when Moroccans marched together to claim what they perceived as their land being taken away by a colonial force. Using a variety of actors, Fnaïre makes sure to showcase the country’s cultural differences. Old and young, men and women appear carefully selected and dressed in the distinctive clothing of the Touareg or Beni Hassan nomads to represent Morocco’s diversity.1 By showing a variety of actors representing ‘the people’, the music video ultimately places the burden of the country’s progress on Moroccans: “Let’s join in hands, today we develop our country” (Koulchi ghaydir ydih, lyoum tnamma lbled). With the people being responsible for the country, the state frees itself from any accountability regarding the country’s future, turning Moroccans against each other in finding out who to blame for poverty, unemployment, lack of housing, drug addiction, and so forth. The theme of tanmiyya (development) whereby young Moroccans are required to be united in optimism and look to the future is not exclusive to Fnaïre’s work. The theme is also central to a song performed by rappers Rwapa Crew and rock band Babel, winners of the talent contest Génération Mawazine in 2011.2 The entire song, “Feels So Right” (2012), echoes the themes of development, education, unity, and a better future that Fnaïre’s song also established: Hand in hand united Ndirou yed f yed nta7do and anyone intending to harm the country will sink  Ou li baghi y9iss leblad ymchi foundou and you tell me what’s wrong with them Goul li nta ach 3ando those people want to make trouble Baghi ydir lfouda Criticism became like fashion Wella 3andna ghir moda this is a land of brave men Hadi ard rjal koun 3la bal and bravery was never meant to be for sale Ou roujoula33andna ma katba3 b lmal we still have hope to build our future Mazal 3andna amal ndirou lmousta9bal The same images of hands together to protect the status quo appear in these lines. Furthermore, narratives of unity are here placed next to

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attacks against critical voices. These rappers who are a direct product of a talent contest created and funded by the Makhzen, condemn those who criticize as they can only be enemies of the nation, while those who defend it are brave. In simple terms, this verse suggests that development can only occur without criticism and therefore dissenting voices do not want the country to progress. The insistence again on expressing discontent presents a problem to the state due to its reliance and international and national promotion of the idea of development. The Makhzen has actively promoted socio-economic development through a number of foundations, presenting Mohammed VI as the “king of the poor” (Cavatorta and Durac 2011: 77). While discussing patriotism and dissent with activist Younes Belghazi he stated, “people in Morocco don’t make the difference between being critical of the system and being with the nation, with your nation” (Belghazi 2013, interview, March 18). In this sense, he added that when it comes to dealing with the nation those who criticize it are portrayed as enemies. Songs like “Matkich Bladi”, “Yed el Henna” and “Feels So Right” construct an image where the opposition can be read as anyone who does not share the Makhzen’s hegemonic narrative on development, territorial integrity, or politics. In a search for official acceptance Fnaïre and H-Kayne’s songs focus on the country’s beauty instead of on the country’s deep social malaises including high levels of poverty, corruption and illiteracy. After the Casablanca bombings, H-Kayne and Fnaïre’s songs helped to encourage the optimistic narrative of the Moroccan ‘exception’. As Mouhssine, a member of Fnaïre, puts it: “Fnaïre says to them [the youth] quite simply that a dose of optimism is always needed to move forward” (Benmehdi 2007). In the same way, H-Kayne claims to transmit “a message of optimism, in which we call on the youth to work”.4 The message of optimism is depicted at the end of the song “Attarikh” (The History, 2008), a song where Fnaïre commemorates 12 centuries of Moroccan history. To celebrate this national anniversary, the song finishes by describing Moroccans with smiling faces: “There are happy and smiley faces, our meeting is today” (Lwjouh fer7ana mbessma maw3idna lyoum). Smiling faces also feature in a song by H-Kayne called “Bladi” (My Country, 2006) included in the rapper’s second album: “nice people there who have a nice smile” (nass lkhir hadouk s7ab da7 ka lmebchoura). In the same song, H-Kayne capitalizes on the goodness of Moroccan people to accentuate the beauty of the country:

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Generosity and goodness Lkhir ou ljoud you can find everything here koulchi moujoud its people are hospitable Maliha mdyafine just grab and take ghi hezz w khoud wherever you go you find nice people… fin ma mchiti tel9a nassha draf mzyanine H-Kayne, goodness, goodness H-Kayne khir, khir my country is good bladi bikhir These songs hardly resemble the rappers and themes of most US rap. On the contrary, praise in these songs of Morocco’s rich landscape of mountains, desert and sea shape Morocco, as if they were being read from a tourism brochure. Though Morocco has a beautiful landscape, these songs do not engage with other locations that epitomize social issues such as poor urban neighbourhoods as other rap music videos in Morocco do. Images used in the video of “Yed el Henna”, such as the tent in the Sahara, the diverse and colourful garments, and the camel, are frequently employed by the tourism industry to brand Morocco. However, it is important to read these songs as part of the traditional body of work of postcolonial Morocco where these themes are not uncommon. The target of these songs is not young people exclusively, but the broader audience, especially families, that attends open-air and free music festivals. The fact that these songs work well within Moroccan audiences has encouraged H-Kayne to continue to release patriotic singles and music videos throughout the years. In addition to Othman’s “Maghreb 1 Machi 2” (Morocco 1 not 2, 2010) and “A la Marocaine” (2011), both analysed in the previous chapter, H-Kayne released two more thematically similar songs. The song and music video “Panthera Leo Leo” (2013) is a collaboration with the Dutch comedians De Borrelnootjez in support of the national football team5: “We do this out of love and pride for our country.”6 Another H-Kayne single released in May 2014, “Safi, Tfe Dow” (Enough, Put the Lights Off), repeats the group’s patriotic leitmotifs: “bladi bladna” (my country is our country); “bladi ard jdadi” (my country is the country of my grandparents); “mgharba dima mgharba” (Moroccans are always Moroccans) and “khouk ana” (I’m your brother). Phrases such as “Bladi ard jdadi” are also used in the song “Bladi” (2006) and “Khouk ana” in several lines of their first hit “Issawa Style” (2006). Similar to the previous songs in this section,

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the metaphor of light in the title “Safi, Tfe Dow” suggests an end to criticism. Producing rap music that is digestible by a varied range of Moroccan audiences has granted rappers like Fnaïre and H-Kayne benefits in gaining fame and wealth.

Marketing Patriotism By 2005, their digestible rap had allowed these rap groups to go from being belittled by official media and television to becoming well-paid artists. After participating in L’Boulevard in 2003, H-Kayne was programmed in the first edition of the Festival de Casablanca together with Fnaïre, and both were again headlining the same festival in 2007. Since then, H-Kayne has participated in five editions of Mawazine, in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2013, gaining in its performance of 2008 an extra royal don of 250,000 dirhams (£17,672). By January 2010, the members of H-Kayne enjoyed such a central role in young popular culture in Morocco that they were officially named as goodwill ambassadors for the United Nations Development Programme. In 2013, H-Kayne, Fnaïre, Don Bigg and rapper Komy were the first rappers to receive a Royal Medal (wissam maliki), a medal that Muslim would also receive later in 2015 despite also being one of the pioneers of the rap scene. To be sure, other rappers were part of this first wave of the Moroccan rap scene, but the spotlight was shared by only a handful. The triumph of patriotism as a marketing strategy can be evidenced by how other members of the hip hop community have emulated these celebrity rappers. Emulating patriotic narratives has been a door of entry for unknown rappers to be selected to perform in Mawazine, the largest music festival in the country. This is the case for rapper Hamid VFF, a relatively unknown rapper from Casablanca whose work has not achieved great success. In December 2013, Hamid VFF released the song “Familla” (Family), engaging with the leitmotif that highlights Moroccan pride and brotherhood. The lyrics of this song are otherwise empty of any other content, constantly repeating the rapper’s sense of belonging to the Moroccan nation. The music video employs the Moroccan flag in combination with Arabic words such as watan (nation) and mghrebi (Moroccan) and French, such as the chorus, “Ma nation, ma fierté” (My nation, my pride). The implication of Hamid’s participation in a big international music festival like Mawazine is that in order to achieve economic capital and be visible in the Moroccan music scene, artists only

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need to produce patriotic music. Any other kind of engagement with Moroccan society, gaining audience among young people, artistic creativity and aesthetics are regarded as unimportant. While the process of selecting rappers for Mawazine, a festival that usually devotes one night to Moroccan rap in the Salé scene, remains obscure, during my time living in Morocco (2011–2016) I discovered it was up to one man, Hassan Nefali. Nefali is responsible for the line-up of all the Moroccan artists in the festival. By inviting the same already famous rappers year after year together with unknown newcomers to the scene, this middle-aged man has shown little knowledge of youth music. Nefali admitted to this when, in an interview for an online news site http://www.magress.com, he declared that the criteria for programming Moroccan artists in Mawazine were having a name in the music scene and having already performed in the festival.7 According to this, Nefali considers that Mawazine does not provide a platform for new local and upcoming artists as one might expect from a festival with direct state funding. The profit gained through patriotic themes has reached such an extent that artists do not even need to release the actual song to benefit from its notoriety. This is the case with well-known artist and former rapper Barry, who announced in January 2014 the release of a song called “Sahra Dialna” (Our Sahara). Several national media outlets such as the French-language magazine Aujourd’hui le Maroc and the Arabic news sites like http://www.alyaoum24.com, http://www.watan24.net and http://www.marocpress.com,8 as well as international media like Egypt Today,9 announced the soon to be released single. The cover image used to promote the song reproduces the map of Morocco, including the Sahara area, and employs many of the territorial unity clichés discussed in this chapter. Nevertheless, despite Barry’s announcement and the media’s promotion of the single, after three years this song has yet to be released. The case of “Sahra Dialna” confirms the marketability of these songs and the commodification of patriotism. Patriotic rap songs are therefore not significant for the cultural field as music production, but rather a strategy to promote artists without giving any value to the actual music aesthetics, or the skills of the rapper to produce ingenious punchlines, creative rhyme schemes and delivery, and striking beats or innovative flows. Together with the state and private media, the advertising industry in Morocco has contributed to the idea that patriotism and national unity

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sells. As with many celebrities, rappers around the world have participated in advertisements in exchange for large amounts of money. Since rappers became well-known artists, this has also been the case in Morocco, where companies have used hip hop in their commercials. Starting with H-Kayne’s campaign for Dan-Up in 2005, Casablanca rappers like Tanzzy and the better known rapper Masta Flow have represented international trademarks such as Head & Shoulders and Nescafé. The latter organized a contest for hip hop dancers giving winners the chance to be part of the new spot. While newer commercials have diverged from stagnant patriotic themes, this was not the case for a song and music video released in 2007 for Maroc Telecom to promote the new label Mobisud. Until 2001, Maroc Telecom (Ittisalat Al Maghrib) was state-owned, then 35% of its shares were sold to the French media company Vivendi, which in 2005 then acquired 51% of the company. In 2013, Vivendi sold its stake in the company to the United Arab Emirates-based telecom provider Etisalat.10 The campaign of the by then private company gathered two of the most high-profile rappers of the time, Don Bigg and H-Kayne, as well as the singers Steph Ragga Man and Khansa Batma to collaborate in the song and music video “Sma3ni” (Listen to Me, 2007). The lyrics of the song highlight the importance of Moroccan national unity in order to improve communication. As in other H-Kayne songs, the idea of brotherhood is central in their verses. As Othman from H-Kayne sings: I want to say bghit ngoul Moroccans are brothers mgharba khout and they got together to open doors w 7bab tta7do 7ollo l bwab hand-in-hand we can change and communicate l yed f l yed nghayro nwasselo Don Bigg contributes, singing: Moroccans, we are all brothers kolna khout lmgharba your brother is Moroccan in his heart  k houkom f l galb meghribi In all these verses, the rappers focus on the role of men as they talk about khout (brothers) which refers just to men in Arabic, ignoring the role of women in the Moroccan national consciousness. Claims of unity abound in the song:

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your hand in my hand yeddik fi yeddia we could do something together  g hadi n9adro ndiro chi 7aja God’s hand is with unity yed lah ma3a l jama3a However, they are gender biased as expressed by Sif Lssane, member of H-Kayne, at the end of his verse: Moroccans are men from the mountains mgharba rjal wlad l jbal able to uplift the nation gaddine b l wtane this is a mark which will stay in our hearts  hadchi f jowwala limara f l gloub me7touta Disregarding the fact that the female singer Khansa Batma is also singing, women as part of the national family are discarded in these verses. Despite feminist accomplishments, including the new family code working towards women’s equality in Morocco, the rappers’ discourse is part of the state’s discourse, where “Moroccan women are presented as a nameless and faceless mass and as generic, passive and reactive people, who are present in history, but never as agents who initiate historical processes” (Kozma 2003: 127). In the verses of these male artists, women are not even present and are therefore perceived as unimportant in the construction of national unity. A song that belongs to a commercial campaign of a private and foreign-owned company capitalizes also on the enemy narrative. In this song, some of the artists vilify those who aim to break national unity, such as when rapper Sif Lssane from H-Kayne sings: Why do you want to break the group? lach baghine tfertko rba3a Those who want to divide us will never succeed  lli baghi y9essmo bina l lblad mo7al tessda9 Even if the target audience for this song is young Moroccans, the rapper, in the context of a commercial, is still employing a political narrative by directly addressing an unknown enemy and turning it into a marketing strategy to sell a product. Tapping into the binary of good and bad Moroccans, rapper Hatim accuses the audience of being responsible for the nation’s division. He tells them not to hang up (the phone) because “you’re the one that separates us” (c’est toi qui nous sépare). Similarly, Steph Ragga Man sings, “We should stay away from the wrong path”

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(nba3do 3la tri9 l 7ram o man be3d). These artists turn the same narratives with which they became known into a marketable message for which they are paid. Maroc Telecom also profits from patriotic messages and from the popularity of these rappers among the youth to sell their product. This commercial reflects the extent to which patriotism is a product of consumption in Morocco, commodifying patriotism and suggesting that national unity, love and Moroccanness are dependent on Maroc Telecom. In other words, you must consume a foreign-owned company’s product in order to show your love for the nation and certify you are not a separatist. While these narratives may work for some, voices have been raised speaking against this use of patriotic themes and categorizing these rappers as opportunists whose only aim is to gain state support and economic profit.

Exposing Patriotic Demagogy Contrary to state, private media and companies’ preferences, some artists, including some Moroccan rappers, have denounced and shown their concerns with repetitive patriotic themes. Before the 2011 uprisings, patriotic rap songs were well established in Morocco and Palestine. In the latter, rap groups like DAM and MWR have included patriotic songs in their repertoire, being perceived as an act of resistance against Israeli occupation (Massad 2005: 194). Patriotic rap songs in Morocco do not respond to a similar impulse. Critical sectors of the cultural field, like the official magazine of the music festival L’Boulevard and artists such as Reda Allali from the fusion group Hoba Hoba Spirit and rapper Mobydick, have labelled the phenomenon of Moroccan patriotic rap songs as “watanounism”. This is an invented hybrid word that combines the Arabic word watan (nation) with the French suffix -isme which usually refers to an opinion or an attitude. A similar word, watanisme, as it appears in Baduel (1992: 237), or with the English suffix watanism, as in Lukitz (1995: 160), seldom appears in essays referring to nationalism with no negative connotations. In Morocco, watanounism is used when discussing “patriotic rap” as is the case in the magazine TelQuel (February 12, 2011) and in my interviews with Salah Malouli (2011, interview, December 8) and Younes Belghazi (2013, interview, March 18). Although the word watanounism is not otherwise significantly used, two articles in different Moroccan magazines, Lkounache del Boulvard (L’Boulvard Notebook) (2009), the official magazine of the music

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festival L’Boulevard des Jeunes Musiciens, and TelQuel (October 8, 2010), make use of it to openly criticize the patriotic trend in Moroccan rap. In 2009, Lkounache del Boulvard, which is published once a year, briefly highlighted its criticism of patriotic rap in an article called “Rap: les 7 péchés capitaux” (Rap: The 7 Capital Sins). The article discusses the sins committed by the newly created Moroccan rap scene and comments on watanounism, claiming that: There are [rappers] specialists on patriotic demagogy. The kind of guys who make the new niche of “Neo-Nationalistic Rap”. Suddenly, as if they had just been naturalized Moroccan, they begin to shout their love to the country without anyone asking them anything. (Lkounache del Boulvard 2009: 27)

The article labels these songs as “patriotic demagogy” and “neo-nationalistic rap”. In referring to this rap as ‘demagogic’ it reflects the idea that rappers whose songs fall into watanounist narratives practise a kind of patriotism that appeals to people’s desires without argument. By adding the prefix neo- to the definition, the author of this article differentiates the patriotism currently springing up within the rap scene from patriotic songs that emerged during the struggle for independence from French and Spanish colonial rule. In contrast to Palestinian patriotic rap songs, patriotic Moroccan songs are perceived as misleading and submissive because, contrary to the nationalist movement and patriotic feelings that arose during Morocco’s period of struggle for independence, this new patriotism is senseless. This article therefore considers, as Paul Gilroy (2004: 87) claims, that adding neo- to the term nationalism is required to differentiate contemporary discourses from older ones. This prefix suggests a new kind of nationalism embedded in new forms of cultural production that must be contextualized. In this sense, the new nationalism directly refers to groups such as Fnaïre and H-Kayne as was pointed out by Zakaria Boualem, the alter ego of Reda Allali, the leader of the fusion group Hoba Hoba Spirit. Allali’s weekly column, written in a sarcastic tone, describes the rap group Fnaïre as “a rap group that suffers from intense watanounisme” (TelQuel October 8, 2010). This criticism of patriotic rap stems from the simplicity of the lyrics as the previous section argues, but also the commercial success of these songs. The neo- is

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not in the songs’ themes, but in the revival of such themes in a genre that has rarely placed uncritical patriotism in a relevant spot. Audiences have also critically identified this phenomenon, as I grasped during my time in Morocco. At one of the several lectures on Moroccan rap I delivered to undergraduate students in Rabat at the Cross Cultural Center Learning (CCCL), some Moroccan students pointed out that these rappers included patriotic issues like territorial unity, but said nothing relevant in the rest of the song. The students added that this phenomenon was a marketing strategy to find easy access to Moroccan radio stations. Activist and artist Younes Belghazi also mentioned this strategy during an informal conversation previous to our interview on March 18, 2013. Belghazi claimed that by employing patriotic discourses, rappers such as Fnaïre and H-Kayne gain favour from the state—they are promoted on the radio and able to participate in music festivals. Miller and Caubet specifically point this out to be the case in a group like Fnaïre: “This patriotic position has allowed them to be very well relayed in the media and festivals, which is far from being the case of the most rebellious rappers” (Miller and Caubet 2012: 4). In our interview, rapper Mobydick further developed this idea, clearly spelling out the motivations behind this music and calling these artists “opportunists”: We come back to something that has always worked in Morocco. It is very easy, it goes quickly, radios accept it, associations [civil society] accept it, the stages, you can find a lot of people who include you in the program because you sang a song about this theme… What I’m trying to say is that except someone that stands out, the rest they all do the same thing, and usually if you get into the guts of the Moroccan art you will understand that it is opportunistic. (Mobydick 2013, interview, July 5)

Mobydick, also known as Lmoutchou,11 reproduces this criticism in his song “Checkmate” (2011), “Lmoutchou independent and sick of odes, fuck patriotic rap” (Moutchou autonome mes9oum bel anachid, fuck rap del wataniya). Between humorous lines in the song are direct attacks on rappers like Fnaïre, H-Kayne and Don Bigg whose lyrics avoid any meaningful criticism of the country’s political elite, Moroccan authorities, or official institutions. Mobydick specifically denounces Don Bigg in the music video of this song. At the start of the video Mobydick identifies

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the Moroccan Makhzen as culprit when the rapper alleges: “the freedom of speech is today in danger” (7ouriyate te3bire lyouma 9faret); adding: “fuck Abbass Nazi”, referring to Abbas El Fassi Fihri, a figure who allows rappers to denounce nepotism and corruption in the Moroccan elite as will be discussed later in this chapter. Other rappers such as Dizzy DROS and Muslim have criticized patriotically themed rap in their songs. In his song “7ob LWatan” (Love of the Nation, 2009), Muslim questions why one should love the nation when the nation does not give anything in return. He says in the chorus, “My country didn’t give me anything, but wants love from me” (bladi ma3tani walo baghi menni l7ob). He also refers to social issues such as the hardship of poverty: It’s hard to love a country S3ib tbghi bled where you don’t even have a parcel of land ma3andek fih hta radma It gives you cold and hunger 3tak lberd o jou3 and doesn’t give you work o ma3tak lkhedma If you want to live ida konti baghi t3ich you have to pay electricity and water khalass daw o lma He sings that, in spite of social injustices, loyalty to the nation is forced upon the people from an early age: Since you were small melli konti sghir you were drawing the star o nta tarssem f nejma and now when you grow up, daba melli kbarti it became your tattoo kabrat m3ak wechma The star is always up high in the sky nejma dayman fo9 3alya f sma And you are on the ground standing on only one foot o nta fo9 l2ard mkali ghir b zatma Through these powerful lines, Muslim employs the star to symbolize the fact that elites stand above the people. The rapper claims that a small ruling elite that despises the impoverished in Morocco governs the country. The image of the tattoo refers to the difficulty in rebelling, as oppression is so pervasive. The power of the elites, that is, the Makhzen, is in you for ever, and although one only realizes their oppression when one grows up, it begins in childhood:

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You’ll never understand that the country is the one responsible bach 3omrek matfham blli dawla hiya lmas2oula they planted fear in us when we were in primary school zar3o fina lkhawf o hna ba9in f sana oula since we were small they taught us to fear the beast melli kona sghar 3alamtouna nkhafo min lghola when we grew up we knew that the beast is the country melli kbarna 3rafna belli lghola hiya dawla Instead of referring directly to the Makhzen, which still connotes power, Muslim employs the word “beast”. As Muslim explained in our interview: When we were small and wanted to talk about something everybody used to tell us shut up don’t talk about this and that. Moms used to say: don’t go there because there’s a monster, and when we grew up we figured that this monster doesn’t exist and there’s another monster which is the… the… (Muslim 2013, interview, June 26)

Although Muslim does not directly point it out, by employing recognizable metaphors in this song, he constructs a highly critical discourse on the nation, away from idealistic images of happy people and placing the blame for the people’s poverty and hardship on the fear (or hiba in Arabic, to use the local word) towards the state. In a similar way to watanounism, H-Kayne and Fnaïre’s enthusiastically positive depiction of the county has also been discursively constructed through another neologism: 3amzinism, literally meaning ‘good year’. This is an ironic term that translates as those who are overoptimistic and blind to reality, that is, those Moroccans who follow and perpetuate the narrative of the Moroccan ‘exception’. 3amzinism is composed of two words, one in Arabic, ‘am (year), and the other in Darija,

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zwine (nice, good). This term appears in the chorus of a Hoba Hoba Spirit song called “Grimma Awards” (2013). The song of this fusion group denounces artists who side with the Makhzen and receive the state’s support in the form of grimma in turn.12 The term was, however, previously employed by Mobydick in his single “7izb L3am Zine” (The Everything Goes Well Party, 2009). In this song, the rapper mocks the use of the hands to symbolize unity: Here is my speech full of promises Hak khetabi koullou wou3oud I am telling you, just lend me your ear  ngoulik ghi 3teni woudnik My citizen sister, my citizen brother Oukhti l’mouwatena, Akhi l’mouwaten Hand-in-hand we work the country l’yed fe l’yed n’khedmou l’blad we build tomorrow, come closer n’bniw l’ghed wa zid 9erreb I will find a place where the unemployed can live N’dir l’choumour fine yetkhebba The unity promoted by rapper Mobydick includes women, highlighting the female participants in politics by directing the discourse to fellow sisters as well as brothers, in contrast to the song “Sma3ni” where H-Kayne and Don Bigg overlooked women as part of the nation. Mobydick starts a fictitious speech in an ironic tone where the rapper makes promises of better education and employment, and also promises the people he will get rich: If you want money Li baghi l’flouss? ‘Yes we can’ Yes We can If you want to give me your vote La bghiti te3teni sotek and see me rich we tchoufni boucou flouss? ‘Yes we can’! Yes We can! These lines draw on Barack Obama’s presidential campaign to present the political process as a way to realize the impossible. Transmitting this idea is particularly significant in Morocco, where the Makhzen benefits from the people’s lack of confidence in politicians precisely because

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it wants to perpetuate the figure of the king as the only one capable of instituting democratic changes (Maghraoui 2011: 681). Furthermore, the chorus of “7izb L3am Zine” ridicules the optimistic narratives of Fnaïre or H-Kayne: Everybody says it’s a good year Koulchi ygoul l3am zine The product of the country is good Mentouj leblad zine There’s no reason to live scared Makayn lach n3ichou khayfine Everybody says it’s a good year Koulchi ygoul l3am zine The economy of our country is destroying China 9tesad bladna fare3 Sine There’s no reason to live angry Makayn lach n3ichou fagsine In denouncing the ideal portrayal of the country, Mobydick’s song gives voice to a sector of Moroccan society which claims that the changes brought by Mohammed VI are cosmetic and that many are not benefiting from the neoliberal market economy and instead becoming even poorer. Similarly, Dizzy DROS’ album 3azzy 3ando Stylo (Black with Style, 2013) includes lines in different songs, including “L’Benj” (Anaesthesia, 2013), that hint at the rapper’s contempt for Fnaïre (Moreno-Almeida 2016b). These critical voices are proof that, although rappers who focus on patriotic themes gain income and public exposure, there is space for artists and audiences to protest and even mock these narratives. The fact that this criticism is expressed in different forms emphasizes the idea that the Makhzen’s strategies are well known to a diverse audience and not always effective.

Between Keepin’ It Real and Commodifying Rebellion As patriotic themes, political critical lyrics may also become clichéd: audiences and artists are perceived as ‘inauthentic’ if this engagement is empty, replete only with banal phrases. For some commentators on global rap, as the introduction of this book discusses, conscious rap is defined necessarily as ‘authentic’. Baker argues that Cuban revolutionary rap has been constructed as “an ‘authentic’ movement harking back to the genre’s original spirit” (Baker 2005: 382). In this sense, often, as Carolyn Mose (2013: 249) argues in the context of African popular youth culture, authenticity is linked to modes of rebelliousness and

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resistance. Hip hop in Africa and the MENA region fits into this perception where youth culture is regarded as merely a ‘protest’ culture that voices the urban underprivileged and oppressed classes. Many rappers have noted this take on resistance. Some have resolved to capitalize on the idea that authenticity is achieved through protest music to construct themselves as socially and politically engaged artists and gain symbolic capital. While there is no doubt that there are rappers often categorized as ‘conscious’, such as Public Enemy or Dead Prez, some have been accused of using a rebellious narrative to sell. An example is the case of Ice Cube, member of the rap group NWA. An editorial in The Economist openly stated with regard to this rapper that “in rap as in rock, rebellion sells” (cited in Chang 2005: 341). Such a criticism is rarely used to refer to MENA rappers whose Political lyrics are never suspected to be a tool to ‘sell’. Locally, however, Political songs can fail to resonate with the life of urban youth. Moreover, despite Political lyrics, lack of required skills to perform this music genre can result in the rapper’s loss of credibility and symbolic capital among local rap audiences. To illustrate this argument, this section presents the case of rapper Chaht Man who, in spite of his disapproval of the country’s social and political malaises, has not been able to establish profound links with the audience and thus has not gained sufficient ‘street credibility’. Chaht Man was a member of a well-known rap group from Casablanca called Casa Crew formed in 2003 following the participation of its members in the music festival L’Boulevard des Jeunes Musiciens. After Casa Crew produced its second album Al Basma (The Print, 2007), its members (Masta Flow, J-OK, Mc Caprice and Chaht Man) started independent careers as solo artists. Chaht Man shaped his artistic persona under a new pseudonym, athawri (the revolutionary in Arabic), or as he writes it and closer to the Darija pronunciation attawri. Chaht Man established a ‘rebellious’ image after releasing his first solo album called Attawri (The Revolutionary) in 2010 and two years later the album Ana 7or (I’m Free, 2012). In his songs, Chaht Man claims to be enraged and to be a fighter for social justice particularly against the state. In a homonymous song on the first album called “Attawri” (2010), the rapper connects the idea of revolution to social inequities, blaming the nation’s politicians for the poor state of affairs. Later in this song, Chaht Man questions the narrative of the artistic revolution formulated under the notion of Nayda as argued in Chap. 2, saying: “And you say 2010 Nayda?” (Wtgoul 2010 Nayda?). In these lines, Chaht Man criticizes the romantic image

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of youth in the Nayda Movement during the first years of the reign of Mohammed VI. As Chaht Man claims in “Attawri”, instead of hope and winds of democratic changes, in 2010 he still sees angry people living in fear: Why is the system not going straight today Mal system lyouma ghadi daykh mrouwen Why are people sleeping and quiet today Mal cha3b lyouma ghafel ghir mkouwen People are closing their hearts and living scared Bnadem saket katem 9albo 3aych mzarri People are angry that’s why they called me revolutionary Bnadem na9em ka3i 7ta smmawni tawri The rapper rescues the struggle for independence to claim his revolutionary spirit or the cultural revolution in Morocco started with Nayda: “I became a revolutionary because I inherited it from my grandparents” (Wllit tawri 7it wrett tawra men jdoudi). More importantly, in this song Chaht Man connects the notion of revolution to two historical moments in Morocco: the resistance against French colonial rule and the years of the repressive rule associated with former king Hassan II. Chaht Man also imagines his revolutionary persona by associating himself with these diverse personalities from Morocco’s past, in particular via connection with Moroccan characters of dissent such as Mehdi Ben Barka, Allal Ben Abdellah and Abdelkrim Al Khattabi: I became a revolutionary Wllit tawri because Ben Barka and Allal are in my blood 7it Ben Barka w 3ellal f demmi I became a revolutionary Wllit tawri because Abdelkrim Al Khattabi is revolutionary 7it Abdelkrim Al khattabi tawri These national figures are significant political activists in different historical periods. Mehdi Ben Barka was an activist and dissident leftist in the 1960s during Hassan II’s iron grip on power; he disappeared and was assassinated in Paris in October 1965 on the order of General Mohammed Oufkir. Allal Ben Abdellah is considered a hero of

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Moroccan anti-colonial resistance against the French, and was killed in 1953. The famous singer Setati dedicated a song to Allal Ben Abdellah, popularizing his story in Moroccan collective memory.13 Chaht Man’s mention of Abdelkrim Al Khattabi, on the other hand, is surprising, as Al Khattabi is considered to have challenged the Moroccan monarchy in his struggle during the Rif Wars (1919–1926) against Spanish colonial power during an attempt to establish the Republic of the Rif. Al Khattabi is therefore a symbol of the Amazigh resistance. In a recent article in the magazine Zamane,14 however, the Rifian leader is presented as a patriotic anti-colonial revolutionary leader who, while he had at first collaborated with the Spanish colonial rule, then became Spain’s enemy and tried to contact the Sultan to invite him to unite forces against the colonial rule. In the song “Attawri”, Chaht Man also mentions Driss El Basri, the fearsome long-time Interior Minister under Hassan II. El Basri was dismissed when Mohammed VI came to power in an attempt to break with the repressive past of Hassan II’s reign (Storm 2007: 38). Chaht Man blames Driss El Basri for anaesthetizing the population with drugs instead of providing them with education: El Basri said we have to apply the policy of stupidity Gal L’Basri khassna nkhadmo syassat taklikh To give people less knowledge, Na9sso 9raya na9sso draya seems like they want to arrive at Mars hadou bghaw ywasslo l’Marikh Give them hashish, drugs and heroin Hako 7chich hako chira w zid lheroin Give them pills, beers and cocaine Hako 9a9a hako birra zid kokain Criticism of politicians and important characters from contemporary national politics including El Basri and Abbas El Fassi Fihri, a member of the Istiqlal Party and Morocco’s prime minister from 2007 to 2011, are not unique to Chaht Man. Both El Basri and Fassi Fihri are mentioned in other rap songs, such as “Bladi Blad” (My Country is a Country, 2006) by Don Bigg and Alfaress; “Checkmate” (2011), the freestyle song by Mobydick mentioned earlier; and “Msa7a Fia” (You Can Blame It On Me, 2012), also a freestyle song, by rapper Dizzy DROS. El Fassi has often been criticized for nepotism after members of his family were

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appointed to numerous positions in the government and have been closely linked to the monarchy (Maghraoui 2011: 688). The Fassi family and government were also targeted during the demonstrations of the February 20 Movement in 2011. This kind of criticism remains within the state’s accepted ‘oppositional’ discourse or accepted criticism that still does not cross the country’s ‘red lines’. Criticism directed at the Fassi family allows activists, rappers and artists to direct their frustration towards members of the government but without crossing the country’s red lines and criticizing the monarchy. Class inequalities also feature in the song “Attawri” which are reflected in its mentions of the uprisings in 1981 when people protested against the high cost of living and unemployment. Chaht Man emphasizes the difference between the rich and the poor by painting a picture of a country governed by the elite bourgeoisie. As the rapper claims, important surnames like Bennani, Bennis and ‘Amrani represent only the privileged minority: I am no Bennani, Machi ana Bennani I am no Bennis, machi ana Bennis I am no L3amrani, Machi ana L3amrani, these are surnames that ‘play 10’ al9ab la3ba 10 I am the suffering one, Ana li cheb3an tkarfiss I am the angry one ana li cheb3an f9ays I am the one who takes the bus, Ana li ghadi f tobis I left you the Mercedes khallit lk l’Mercedes In order to depict social roles, Chaht Man employs the football image “play 10”, used in Morocco to refer to those who play the main political, social, economic and cultural roles in the country. Chaht Man sides with the angry poor people deprived of the possibility of economic success because of not having the correct surnames and therefore belonging to lower socio-economic classes. It is undeniable that “Attawri” is charged with social and political critique showing class consciousness and a clear depiction of hogra, as contempt is locally named. In spite of these lyrics, Chaht Man has failed to evoke a politically rebellious identity. In order to decipher the reasons behind his failure, we need to tap into other songs as well as his branding of “Attawri”. Several Chaht Man music videos are perceived as socially inappropriate in Morocco, with him being one of the first rappers to

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show alcohol consumption and women dancing in mini-skirts or shorts. In “Attawri”, the rapper criticizes the former prime minister El Basri for allowing the use of drugs and alcohol in the country; however, in the song “00h Casablanca” (2012) Chaht Man appears holding two bottles of alcoholic drinks. Even if this song focuses on showing the city of Casablanca by night, the song does not engage with social issues such as alcoholism. The subject of alcohol in a country where by law it is forbidden to any Moroccan to buy it, and it is socially looked down on, comes up in other Moroccan rap songs. Some portray alcohol in negative terms, associating it to moral deviances of the upper classes, as in the single “Marock” (2013), a collaboration of rapper Yassine from the Fez City Clan and Shobee from Shayfeen; or as a social problem of the underprivileged as in Don Bigg’s “Casanegra” (2009); or in Muslim’s “Tanja for Life” (2009), as a consequence of foreign influence. Less common are songs that show alcohol in their videos in a similar way to Chaht Man though some that do include ones from Mobydick, the crew Bizzmakers from Casablanca and more recently rapper 7liwa.15 These rappers, however, have not openly claimed to be ‘revolutionary’. The use of sexualized female bodies also calls into question Chaht Man’s self-denomination as revolutionary. Even if alcohol features in other Moroccan rappers’ cultural production, this is not the case with over-sexualized women such as appear in Chaht Man’s videos “F.Y.” (2012) and “00h Casablanca”. Young women appear in these videos dancing, emerging as objects for the viewers’ consumption. In this line, a picture to promote his single “Mizi Drahem Ikhourjou Lik Ikwari” (Insert Dirhams and The Balls Will Come Out, 2012) shows Chaht Man’s name drawn on a woman’s leg. Mini-skirts and short dresses such as that worn by the woman in this picture are not commonly worn in public in Morocco. Moreover, the bulk of Moroccan rap songs and music videos do not make use of female bodies in this manner, nor do many of the young Master of Ceremonies (MCs) of the region. The use of women’s bodies in Chaht Man’s videos presents him as disrespectful of Moroccan cultural norms, but also highlights the general attitude of respect by rappers of the MENA region towards women’s bodies. The absence of sexualized women in Moroccan or MENA rap is not necessarily indicative of gender equality in these music scenes. Rather, it denotes that rap in the region is more concerned with the everyday lives of urban youth, tackling social inequities and political corruption, but also with presenting a creative and

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Fig. 4.1  Snapshot of music video “F.Y.” (2012) by rapper Chaht Man

aesthetic value that does not revolve merely around sexualized women even if gender issues do come through in some of the texts and music videos. By transgressing this unwritten norm, Chaht Man is perceived as far from revolutionary. The fact that the rapper has used the calligram of his moniker attawri as a brand in most of his music videos and pictures raises questions regarding the commodification of this name. In the music video of his track “F.Y.” (Fig. 4.1), the rapper appears with the logo printed on his t-shirt and tracksuit. The calligram appears not only on the rapper’s clothes, but also on t-shirts worn by dancers, rappers and other actors in other music videos such as “Dima Classic” (Always Classic, 2012), “CCTV” (2012) and more significantly “Attawri” (2012). In this sense, in spite of “Attawri” having social and politically engaged lyrics, the combination with a music video that employs scantily clad women and creating a brand with his moniker challenges Chaht Man’s seriousness

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of being an ‘authentic’ revolutionary: the rapper associating his moniker with a brand and the sexualization of women’s bodies is a connection far from the majority of the region’s activist artistic expressions. Chaht Man also uses images to depict himself as an angry rapper by showing his middle finger, and calling one of his songs “F.Y.”, which stands for “Fuck You”. Even though they are formally banned, the use of swear words, especially in English, is not rare in Moroccan rap; for example Don Bigg, Muslim‚ Dizzy DROS and Mobydick also employ the word “fuck” in their lyrics. Cursing is therefore part of the field of Moroccan rap in that it reflects street talk. In this sense, in the Maghreb expressions of anger, denouncing class struggles and criticisms of nepotism and corruption are best articulated through the term hogra and have come to be associated with revolution and rebellion. While these are significant topics, they may fall into entrenched expressions that, on their own, lack the necessary strength to be decoded as subversive, defiant or radical. When discussing Chinese popular music, Rey Chow argues that class struggle has been used as the foundation for the official culture of the nation and, therefore, became normalized: While the perception of class is undoubtedly present in the subversive emotions of contemporary Chinese popular music it is present less as an agency for struggle than as the disciplinary cliché of the dominant culture to be struggled against. This is precisely because “class struggle” has been lived through not merely in the form of critical talk but also in everyday experience, as official ideology and national culture. (Chow 1993: 148)

Similarly, in discussing US hip hop’s claimed marginality, Paul Gilroy argues that hip hop has become “as official, as routinised, as its overblown defiance” (Gilroy 1994: 51). Determining if narratives of struggle are routinized or not is not a simple task. It requires an understanding of the ways in which social and political struggle is locally and nationally constructed and, in the case of artistic expressions, an aesthetics able to creatively transmit these narratives. Even if the notion of hogra is alive in contemporary Moroccans’ everyday lives, criticisms of elites embodied in the Fessi family become recurrent in the cultural milieu as part of critical discourses. However, criticisms of the Moroccan elites bolsters the strategy of diverting opposition away from the king (see Chap. 5). This manoeuvre of allowing a controlled or managed opposition as a way of channelling dissent

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questions the very concept of struggle as it is witness to the fact that socially and politically engaged songs may be just part of the monarchy’s strategy to remain in power. Therefore, certain political lyrics used by Chaht Man to build his revolutionary persona do not necessarily constitute dissent as such. ‘Revolution’ as a sign of resistance, opposition and anger has become part of what rappers are not only expected to do (by the media as in the case of the MENA uprisings and by some commentators and part of the audience), but also what they are officially authorized to show. Criticisms of the ruling elites are evidently an important step in denouncing social and political troubles. However, when these are constructed as a simple repetition of names that denote resistance (Al Khattabi) or co-option (El Fessi) rappers miss the chance to engage at a deeper level in terms of narrating how social inequities affect the everyday lives of urban youth. Therefore, Chaht Man comes across as superficial because his rebellious persona is only performed through lyrical engagement dissonant with the rest of cultural production (i.e. his use of women, commercialization of his moniker, etc.). Russell A. Potter reminds us that if rap wants to become a “serious challenge to the forces of commodification, it needs to do more than simply make lyrical resistance” (Potter 1995: 113). Establishing a significant connection with local audiences, particularly with those from underprivileged backgrounds, cannot be limited to ‘Political’ lyrics but must entail other forms of links with local issues beyond the local clichés. In this sense, a committed rapper requires an emotional engagement as much as a Political one. When Chaht Man adopts the pseudonym attawri, he is expected to be fully revolutionary, and simply branding himself as such is not sufficient to gain street credibility. As lyrics are decoded within social, cultural, political and economic contexts, Chaht Man’s limited engagement portrays him as ‘inauthentic’. The failure of Chaht Man’s revolutionary performance led the rapper to change his pseudonym to L’9bi7 (the ugly), cutting ties with the revolution and the political claim to condemning oppression, and thereby avoid criticisms. An open letter published in La Vie Éco voiced audience accusations of Chaht Man’s abuse of the revolutionary motif. Written by music journalist Imane Lahlou, the letter claims the rapper has not been able to live up to rap’s demands: “Dear Chaht Man, you have killed rap and everything it represents” (La Vie Éco July 17, 2012). Lahlou’s statement asserts that rappers in Morocco must be politically and socially engaged but also emphasizes the need for rappers to prove artistic skills. Beyond

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lyrical engagement, in Morocco and beyond, rappers’ ability to create rhymes, a good rhythm or flow, produce powerful beats, and come up with creative punchlines evidences their creativity and determines the success of their productions in terms of winning legitimacy, and as Bourdieu (1993: 30) puts it, “external or specific profits (such as literary prestige) which are at stake in the field”. The idea of symbolic capital is concretized in hip hop through the notion of ‘street credibility’ which is related to the rapper’s ‘authenticity’ (Alim 2006: 85; Harrison 2009: 68). In Distinction (1984), Pierre Bourdieu defines symbolic capital as “the acquisition of a reputation for competence and an image of respectability and honorability that are easily converted into political positions as a local or national notable” (Bourdieu 1984: 291). Following Bourdieu, street credibility is the amount of cultural capital bestowed by the audience and peers to the rapper in order for him or her to be legitimated. This street credibility grants you a reputation of being a skilled rapper able to reflect social reality in a way in which the audience can relate to. For this reason, street credibility is granted locally, or rather, by those knowledgeable about the local politics, society, economy, arts and so forth. While in the US, as Bob White (2011: 71) argues, rappers may gain their street credibility by engaging in violence besides microphone skills, Morocco presents a radically different social context, one where urban violence is not associated with the rap scene. Indeed, during the process of researching and writing this book (2010–2017) I did not find any event that related rappers to urban or any other kind of violence. Themes of violence came up in my interview with Muslim, who clearly stated: “we [Moroccan rappers] don’t support violence” (Muslim 2013, interview, June 26). It is clear that the ‘authentic’ Moroccan rapper is not constructed in the same terms as rappers from other local or national rap scenes. In Morocco, rappers have articulated the idea of ‘keepin’ it real’ by using the term ‘truth’ (vrai in French or waqi’a in Arabic). As the Moroccan rap group Mot de Passe explained in I Love Hip Hop in Morocco (Assen 2007), “rap is saying the truth”. Don Bigg also claims that rapping in Darija is the tool to “speak the truth to all” (Caubet 2005: 239). Don Bigg emphasizes the importance of real talk, as he puts it: “I use the way youth talk to tell the truth. I express my deep thoughts and theirs. I shout out on stage what Moroccans are thinking” (Caubet 2005: 238–239). In Don Bigg’s statement, the ‘truth’ expresses not only his deepest thoughts, but also his value as a rapper representing

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Moroccan youth. For Bigg, the claim of ‘keepin’ it real’ or ‘parler vrai’ is an artistic one of engagement with the world that surrounds him. This concept, related to artists’ credibility and authenticity, also underscores the honesty and ability of the rapper to be true to the street (M White, 2011: 106–107). ‘Honesty’ and ‘truth’ to the street depends on the lived experiences of the artists (Basu 1998: 372). In narrating their everyday experiences, ‘keeping it real’ is enacted not only in telling the ‘truth’ about street life, but is also performed, for example by wearing on stage the same clothes they would wear on the street (Rose 2008: 38). In this sense, Tricia Rose defines ‘keepin’ it real’ as talking openly “about undesirable or hard-to-hear truths about black urban street life” (Rose 2008: 134). Chaht Man’s failure to engage at a deeper level with what in Morocco is perceived as Political, however, questions this idea of a once and for all ‘truth’. Even if Chaht Man ‘spits the truth’, local audiences have decoded it differently. Rapper Muslim deals with expressions of the ‘truth’ in the song “Aka Moutamarred” (Aka the Rebellious, 2009): My voice reaches every Moroccan ay maghribi wsalou sawti Rap is not my life, rap machi 7yati rap becomes my death rap wla mawti I can reach the hearts of people 9dart newsal n 9loub nas because they reach my heart  7it houma weslou n 9albi I only write the reality ktebt ghir lwa9i3 and reality is not a sin w lwa9i3 machi denbi These dramatic lines see the rapper pronounce that rap’s narration of the hardship of everyday life allows him to reach the audience. Rap is thus seen as requiring a deep connection between the artists and the audience. Muslim, as Don Bigg before him, claims that he gives voice to the anxieties of young people: When I started I knew that rap is not a game mli bdit kont 3aref rap machi la3b I found myself representing people jbart rasi kanmtel cha3b I found myself responsible for this generation jbart rasi mes2ouL 3la jil Muslim considers it important to take rap as a serious tool for change, as he claims in the chorus: “My rap is a revolution not a game” (rap dyali

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tawra machi ghi la3b). It is significant, however, that when I asked Muslim about this song, he described it as commercial and uninteresting. Despite the seemingly Political lyrics, this song with a catchy beat does not reach the level of emotional engagement of many of his other songs. Beyond the way songs are coded by their producers, audiences rapidly identify ones that, in spite of being presented as rebellious or patriotic, lack the deep emotional connection capable of constructing a rapper as ‘authentic’ and ‘true’.

Notes





1. These are nomadic tribes living in the Sahara. 2. The music video of this song is further analysed in Chap. 5. 3. We should note that while roujoula here means bravery, it comes from the word rajel, meaning men in Arabic, highlighting an example of sexist language where bravery belongs exclusively to men. 4. h t t p : / / w w w. a l j a z e e r a . c o m / p r o g r a m m e s / n e x t m u s i c s t a tion/2011/05/2011510123548783842.html. [Accessed May 12, 2014]. 5. This song was not released for a specific tournament. 6. “Wij doen dit vanuit liefde en trots voor ons vaderland” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5THArOnlzAk. [Accessed February 5, 2014]. 7. http://www.maghress.com/assabah/9391. [Accessed February 24, 2017]. 8. http://aujourdhui.ma/culture/nouveau-single-barry-lance-sahra-dialnadans-deux-semaines-107401; http://www.alyaoum24.com/171265. html; http://watan24.net/b_%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%8A-%D9 %8A%D8%B7%D9%84%D9%82-%D8%B3%D9%8A%D9% 86%D8%BA%D9%84-%D8%AC%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%AF%D8%A8%D8%B9%D9%86%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%B5%D8%AD%D8%B%D8%A7-%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%A7%D9%84 %D9%86%D8%A7-9934.html. [Accessed February 24, 2017]. 9.  http://www.egypttoday.co.uk/99/2014-01-24-18-19-50. [Accessed February 24, 2017]. 10. http://www.itnewsafrica.com/2013/11/etisalat-acquires-moroccosmaroc-telecom/. [Accessed October 31, 2016]. 11.  Lmoutchou is one of his nicknames. Find more on Mobydick’s work in Moreno-Almeida (2016a). 12. Grimma or grima is a license that allows you to own buses, taxis or other transport businesses in Morocco. 13.  Video available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0hTr90e9_A. [Accessed April 22, 2014]. 14. http://www.zamane.ma/abdelkrim-el-khattabi-na-jamais-ete-secessionniste/. [Accessed February 24, 2017]. 15. For example, Bizzmakers in their freestyle song “B.M.W.” (2013).

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References Alim, H.S. 2006. Roc the Mic Right: The Language of Hip Hop Culture. New York: Routledge. Assen, J. 2007. I Love Hip Hop in Morocco. US: Rizz Production. Baduel, P.R. 1992. La difficile sortie d’un régime autoritaire. Mauritanie 1990– 1992. Revue de Monde Musulman et de la Méditerranée 63–64: 225–243. Baker, G. 2005. ¡Hip Hop, Revolución! Nationalizing Rap in Cuba. Ethnomusicology 49 (3): 368–402. Baron, B. 2004. Egypt as a Woman: Nationalism, Gender, and Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press. Basu, D. 1998. What is Real About “Keeping it Real”? Postcolonial Studies 1 (3): 371–387. Benmehdi, H. 2007. Interview with Fnaïre, A Symbol of Traditional Rap in Morocco. Magharebia, Casablanca, 28 September. Available from http:// magharebia.com/en_GB/articles/awi/features/2007/09/28/feature-03. Boualem, Z. 2010. WILCOUME au plus beau pays du monde. TelQuel. Available from http://www.telquel-online.com/archives/441/zb_441.shtml. Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bourdieu, P. 1993. The Field of Cultural Production. New York: Columbia University Press. Caubet, D. 2005. Génération Darija! Estudios de Dialectología Norteafricana y Andalusí 9: 233–243. Cavatorta, F., and V. Durac. 2011. Civil Society and Democratization in the Arab World: The Dynamics of Activism. London: Routledge. Chow, R. 1993. Listening Otherwise, Music Miniaturized: A Different Type of Question About Revolution. Writing Diaspora: Tactics of Intervention in Contemporary Cultural Studies, 144–164. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Daadaoui, M. 2011. Moroccan Monarchy and the Islamist Challenge: Maintaining Makhzen Power. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Delanty, G., and P. O’Mahony. 2002. Nationalism and Social Theory: Modernity and the Recalcitrance of the Nation. London: Sage. Gilroy, P. 1994. ‘After the Love Has Gone’: Bio-Politics and Etho-Poetics in the Black Public Sphere. Public Culture 7: 49–76. Gilroy, P. 2004. It’s a Family Affair. In That’s the Joint! The Hip-Hop Studies Reader, ed. M. Forman and M.A. Neal, 87–94. New York: Routledge. Harrison, A.K. 2009. Hip Hop Underground: The Integrity and Ethics of Racial Identification. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Kozma, L. 2003. Moroccan Women’s Narrative of Liberation: A Passive Revolution? In Nation, Society and Culture in North Africa, ed. J. Mcdougall, 112–130. Frank Cass Publishers: London.

112  C. Moreno Almeida Lukitz, L. 1995. Iraq: The Search for National Identity. London: Frank Cass Publishers. Maghraoui, D. 2011. Constitutional Reforms in Morocco: Between Consensus and Subaltern Politics. The Journal of North African Studies 16 (4): 679–699. Massad, J. 2005. Liberating Songs: Palestine Put to Music. In Palestine, Israel, and the Politics of Popular Culture, ed. R. Stein and S. Ted, 176–201. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Miller, C., and D. Caubet. 2012. Langue et textes: des Ghiwanes à la nouvelle scène avant et après le 20 février. HAL Sciences de l’Homme et de la Societé: 1–12. Available from http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/68/26/88/ PDF/texte_FINAL_CHANSON.pdf. Moreno-Almeida, C. 2016a. ‘Race’ and ‘Blackness’ in Moroccan Rap: Voicing Local Experiences of Marginality. In American Studies Encounters the Middle East, ed. A. Lubin and M. Kraidy, 81–105. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. Moreno-Almeida, C. 2016b. The Politics of Taqlidi Rap: Reimagining Moroccanness in the Era of Global Flows. The Journal of North African Studies 21 (1): 116–131. Mose, C. 2013. Review of Hiphop Africa: New African Music in a Globalizing World, ed. Eric Charry. The Journal of African Cultural Studies 25 (2): 247– 250. Potter, R.A. 1995. Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the Politics of Postmodernism. Albany: State University of New York Press. Rogers, A.E. 2012. Warding off Terrorism and Revolution: Moroccan Religious Pluralism, National Identity and the Politics of Visual Culture. The Journal of North African Studies 17: 455–474. Rose, T. 2008. The Hip-Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip-hop and Why It Matters. New York: Civitas Books. Sater, J.N. 2010. Morocco: Challenges to Tradition and Modernity. London: Routledge. Storm, L. 2007. Democratization in Morocco: The Political Elite and Struggles for Power in the Post-Independence State. London: Routledge. White, B.W. 2011a. Tracking Globalization: Music and Globalization: Critical Encounters. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. White, M. 2011b. African American Music in Global Perspective: From Jim Crow to Jay-Z: Race, Rap, and the Performance of Masculinity. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. Willis, P., and M. Maarouf. 2010. The Islamic Spirit of Capitalism: Moroccan Islam and its Transferable Cultural Schemas and Values. Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 22 (3): 1–45.

CHAPTER 5

Visual Representations of Power: Urban Spaces and Rooftops

Cities have come to be important loci of power. Urban spaces are of value to the state to reaffirm its dominance and for people to gather and protest, but also to live and narrate their everyday lives by. In Morocco, through the investment in annual music festivals the state as cultural patron ensures its role as the major provider of culture and entertainment. In resisting this dominance, independent cultural actors have depicted urban spaces as a form of protest and of reclaiming the right to self-organize and transform spaces for cultural use. Beyond analysis of lyrics, this chapter looks at visual representations of urban spaces in music videos, cartoons and festival posters. Cities are also the favourite spaces for rappers to perform and re-enact the everyday lives of city dwellers. Through lyrics and music videos, rappers establish an emotional connection with urban youth, opening up discussions deconstructing the city as a space of criticism, protest, love, nostalgia, and friendship. Urban spaces are therefore not only empowering, but also an important source of inspiration for artists and used occasionally to speak back to power. In this sense, views from rooftops are often part of representations of the power over the people, while views from below establish an everyday life connection among ‘the people’. Cities like Rabat, Marrakech, Casablanca and Tangiers embody different power dynamics. While Rabat symbolizes the political power of the state, as the capital city, Marrakech incorporates this power into the international promotion of Morocco. Tangiers, marginalized for decades by the monarchy, not only encapsulates the effects of neoliberal politics, but also its historical past as an international © The Author(s) 2017 C. Moreno Almeida, Rap Beyond Resistance, Pop Music, Culture and Identity, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-60183-0_5

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city. The city of Casablanca, as the country’s economic capital, largest city and cultural hub, epitomizes the power battles between artists, cultural actors and the state. Its high buildings, including its impressive Hassan II mosque, contribute to the constant reminder of the king’s power, in contrast to the flat space of L’Batwar, the old slaughterhouse converted into a favourite spot for shooting rap music videos and as venue for the only state-independent music festival in Morocco.

Festivalization of Urban Spaces In the first decade of the new millennium, urban spaces in Morocco experienced a boom in annual music festivals, which has been largely the result of the cultural policies of Moroccan local councils, governmental bodies and NGOs (Belghazi 2006: 101). The state control over music festivals has led researchers such as Taieb Belghazi (2006), and later Aomar Boum (2012a, b, 2013) and Samir Ben-Layashi (2013), to claim that the Makhzen is working to co-opt urban youth culture through them. While music festivals cover a wide variety of political, economic and cultural purposes, another motivation is the idea of allowing a space to ‘breathe’. Socially, the idea of promoting big annual music festivals can be framed within the notion of tanfis (Wedeen 1999: 88) or tanaffus (Cooke 2007: 72). In the context of Syria, Lisa Wedeen and Miriam Cooke suggest that the government provides a space for controlled opposition in which the population is allowed to breathe (or at least has that impression). Cooke describes tanaffus as a moment for sharing unbelief and awareness of injustice; it produces pleasurable release of pent-up pressure. Some have pointed to the double bind of tanaffus. On the one hand, it marks the survival of a collective consciousness of injustice, that I am not alone in my awareness of stifling oppression and moral betrayal. On the other hand, the anxious reader or spectator can breathe deeply for a moment and then return to life as it was without thinking about changing it. This is the danger of tanaffus: it allows injustice to persist. (Cooke 2007: 72)

In practice, music festivals in Morocco are not only entertaining, but also a moment to enjoy for free—as most of the festivals are open air and free of charge—with family and friends and escape from economic hardship. People and artists relish these music festivals as an opportunity to escape

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from their ordinary lives. Some, however, perceive this liberatory character of festivals with suspicion. Cultural manager Salah Malouli has stated, “I’ve never been convinced that a festival could change mentalities” (TelQuel October 4, 2013: 44). Malouli suggests that festivals provide a controlled space for a momentary sense of liberation, but do not involve social or political change. In our interview, Malouli explained that the problem with all festivals is that culture in Morocco is exclusively based on festivals, with nothing happening at other times in the year (Malouli 2011, interview, December 8). As he claimed, public funding is allocated only to those planning big events that help to promote Morocco nationally and internationally. Everyday, smaller events are not of interest to funding bodies. Festivals not only provide a spiritual release, but also serve as one of the scarce sources of income for artists, as Chap. 6 will discuss. Yet, as previous chapters have argued, the selection of artists—and rappers in particular—is carefully handled, with some being supported while others are disregarded despite their success among Moroccan audiences. This fits in well with the idea that the state employs a strategy of containment whereby certain controlled opposition or dissidence is allowed (Boukhars 2011: 3; Errihani 2013: 59; Langlois 2009: 212). New music festivals which flourished in a time of transition are associated with the new king and his promotion of youthfulness. Embedded in the romantic perception of a ‘new’ Morocco and concretized in the Nayda discourse, festivals aid the Makhzen in claiming an ‘openness’ for the monarchy, while keeping control over urban spaces. Instead of using methods of coercion, the Makhzen has chosen co-optation and selective rewards to consolidate authoritarian rule in neoliberal times. Promoting festivals, as well as showing interest for only some rappers, is therefore part of the divide and rule tactic which is common to many countries in the region. William Zartman’s article “Opposition as Support for the State” (1990) argues that in authoritative regimes such as Morocco, Algeria and Egypt, the opposition plays a strategic role in perpetuating the regime: “Morocco is a political system in which initiatives come from the opposition but are enacted by the government in order to undercut the opposition’s appeal” (Zartman 1990: 229). The Makhzen co-opts its opposition in order to remain powerful. As Combs-Schilling puts it, in Morocco “diversity, ruptures and multiplicity are part of dominance itself” (Combs-Schilling 1999: 187). In this sense, the king of Morocco, as the symbol of national unity, has used political pluralism as a tool

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to divide the diverse political parties (Hammoudi 1997; Maghraoui 2011). Just as with other rulers of the MENA region, the monarchy distances itself from political parties, leaving space for dissonant politics (Brumberg 2002: 61). Since Independence in 1956, the monarchy, as is the case with many other monarchies around the world, has been able to remain independent from political parties. After Hassan II succeeded his father in 1961, he declared in a press conference that the king should stay above party politics. This tactic means that the political opposition remains divided and the Makhzen continues its rule. In the cultural scene, this strategy translates into dominance and appropriation of spaces and events conceived through individual initiatives or associations.

Rabat’s Spatial Hierarchy Despite the issues behind these yearly events, festivals are generally well received by Moroccans. With a few exceptions, they all programme free of charge concerts that constitute a rare opportunity to enjoy a variety of live open-air music genres. However, one of the festivals that has encountered severe opposition by some civil society groups and media outlets is the state-funded Mawazine Rhythms du Monde in Rabat. An article in TelQuel (June 5, 2010) called “Mawazine, Le Miracle Royal” (Mawazine, the Royal Miracle) suggests that after the 2005 success of the Festival de Casablanca, the king also wanted Rabat to have a major music festival. The goal was for the capital city of Morocco to enjoy national and international recognition year after year, whilst allowing the king to perpetuate his image as the main patron of the arts. Although many festivals are organized “under the high patronage of the king”, this festival has become particularly significant due to the high profile of the artists invited to perform, such as Shakira, The Scorpions and Rihanna. The protests are addressed towards the state’s spending on these high-profile artists when the country’s poverty rates continue to be extremely high. A Facebook page aimed at creating awareness of the disputes over this festival better depicts the issues behind Mawazine’s finance and its use as a tool of state social control. A cartoon posted on this page shows a man dressed in a white djellaba and a red tarbush with the word “Makhzen” written on the man’s rather large stomach (Fig. 5.1). The man is holding a briefcase fed by a petrol pump that reads at its top “The goods of the country” (Jirat al blad). Also on the petrol pump we can read “everything is ours” (koulchi dyalna) instead of the price of the petrol,

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Fig. 5.1  Cartoon criticizing Festival Mawazine. Source Internet, artist ‘Imad’

and “ONA tout”, as its trademark. At the same time, the man is giving a dummy with the word “Mawazine” to a crying man who has a sign that says “Moroccan people” (Al watan al maghrebi). This person is sitting inside a cardboard box where we can read the words “water, electricity, credit, education, living” (lma, ddow, lcridi, le9raya, lma3icha). The man kneeling inside the box represents poverty, in stark contrast to the other smiling, overweight man. This is a criticism of the high costs of the festival, which takes place while the country fails to meet these basic needs. However, the fact that the representation of Moroccans, both elites and underprivileged, is done through the image of a man speaks to the gender bias of the cartoonist and the continuous marginalization of Moroccan women despite legal and institutional changes. In addition, the cartoonist also toys with the word ONA by writing in French at the back of the cartoon in the style of a graffiti tag, “ON A RIEN”, that is, “we have nothing”. As the artist of the cartoon suggests, the assets of the country are owned by ONA (Omnium Nord Africaine), here represented by the petrol pump. At one time, ONA was the most important private

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holding in the country, and the majority of its shares are owned by the royal family. In 2010, ONA was succeeded by Société National d’Investissement (SNI), also controlled by the monarchy. Moreover, this company has created the ONA Foundation that, despite the changes in 2010, continues to be the cultural patron in charge of, for example, Villa Des Arts in Casablanca and Rabat and of organizing cultural activities including those related to the music festival Mawazine. The connection between this company, the Makhzen and Mawazine is unpacked in the previously mentioned article in TelQuel (June 5, 2010). It affirms that while this music festival had 11 sponsors in 2007, by 2010 it had double that number. The authors also suggest that many of the sponsors have close links with the monarchy and the Makhzen, such as the holding company Siger, businessmen like Othman Benjelloun and Aziz Akhannouch who is also a politician serving as minister in several cabinets, and foreign companies close to the Moroccan monarchy like JLEC (Jorf Lasfar Energy Company), which is owned by the Abu Dhabi royal family. Despite the high level of social criticism, the fact that Mawazine can boast of over two million spectators, together with an increase in sponsorship, affirms not only the political and economic power of the monarchy and the Makhzen, but also the yearning for cultural events. Contrary to what might be expected, the subtleties behind Mawazine make the case for the marginalization of Moroccan artists. As with other festivals such as the Fez Festival of World Sacred Music (for more on this see Belghazi 2006: 105), Mawazine’s structure follows a particular hierarchy that differentiates the poor from the privileged and Moroccan artists from international ‘stars’. The festival has several stages spread throughout the cities of Rabat and Salé which are only divided by the river Bouregreg. The main stage for international well-known artists is set up in the rich neighbourhood of Souissi, with its own VIP section. The stage of Salé, far from the country’s capital city centre and ‘posh’ neighbourhoods, is assigned for Moroccan artists. This stage not only lacks a VIP section, but has access constraints as it is only accessible from Rabat by small boats crossing the Bouregreg river, car or taxi. This physical distinction is emphasized by the fact that the festival employs two different programmers, one for international artists and another for Moroccans. In 2012, the rapper Muslim performed for the first time in Mawazine. For him, it was an opportunity to increase the number of his fans and to interact with them in a direct way, as rappers do not have many opportunities to organize private concerts, especially those coming from the marginal north. While international artists, such as Mariah Carey, The Scorpions and Jennifer

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Lopez to name but a few, perform on the stage located in the rich neighbourhood, Muslim and all Moroccan rappers are relegated to an understated location outside Rabat. This urban arrangement works well for the state, who can declare their support to Moroccan rappers by giving them the ‘privilege’ of participating in such a festival. Yet, the disruption is minimal as journalists and international media do not attend this difficult to access marginal area. The palace is depicted as a supporter of youth culture, without actually granting visibility beyond local audiences. The difference in the sites disempowers young Moroccans by sending the message that only international artists are to perform on the central stages. In taking advantage of such events, rappers like Muslim may gain an audience and public space in which to express themselves, but they also lose their ‘street credibility’ by performing at a festival with a direct relation to the state’s abuse of economic resources affecting in particular the country’s poor.

Casablanca’s Narratives of Power The city of Casablanca is a particularly interesting space of contention. Nowadays the largest by far urban centre of Morocco, it is home to an eclectic population migrating since the 1960s to build the country’s economic capital and become the symbol of the neoliberal era. Despite the state’s efforts to bring attention to Rabat, it remains a cultural hub remarkably important to the field of music. Casablanca has seen the birth and growth of many iconic members of the hip hop scene including one of the first female rappers, Widad, now part of the successful group N3rdistan, the school for DJs Funky Noise founded by Khalid Douache aka DJ Key, and many rappers, breakdancers and graffiti artists whose careers took off through performances in their neighbourhood’s youth associations. One especially interesting rapper is Taoufik Hazeb, known by the stage name of Don Bigg, from Casablanca, mentioned several times already. Known at the beginning of his career as Bigg aka El Khasser (The Rotten), adding the Don to his name reflected the complexity of inhabiting the liminal space between resistance and co-option. Don Bigg has been part of the rap scene since the 1990s as a solo artist and also as part of different groups, the best known being Mafia C, singing in English at first then rapping in Darija. He released his first solo album Mgharba Tal Mout (Moroccans Until Death) in 2006. This album enjoyed huge success among the youth and some Moroccan

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French-language media, with an article praising the album appearing in TelQuel (September 9, 2006) entitled “Bigg, Le plus fort”. Mgharba Tal Mout contains songs such as “Bladi Blad” (My Country is a Country, 2006), which is highly critical of the country’s social and political system. Since the release of this album, however, Don Bigg’s lyrics have become more conventional and more aligned with the official narrative. The rapper recently condemned the pro-democracy February 20 Movement (F20), which has prompted accusations of co-option by the Makhzen (Boum 2012b: 16; Miller and Caubet 2012: 9). The change in moniker in his second solo album, Byad ou K7al (Black or White, 2009), where he appears as Don Bigg, not only symbolized his evolution as a rapper but also amplified the accusations of co-option. His second album was not as successful as his first, and its review in TelQuel called it “less impulsive than Mgharba Tal Mout, we don’t hear the guts of the singer” (January 22, 2010). This perception of co-option, I argue, is accentuated by the fact that Don Bigg has constructed his cultural production as rebellious by using urban symbols in Casablanca strongly related to youth struggle. Soon after the success of his 2006 album, Don Bigg began to attract criticism due to his participation in the seventh national youth congress (2007) of the Union Sociale des Forces Populaires (USPF). Despite the USPF being one of the most influential of the left wing parties serving in the coalition governments from 1998 to 2011, Moroccan political parties in general are highly mistrusted by citizens. Although groups considered politically engaged such as Nass El Ghiwane and Hoba Hoba Spirit also took part in this event, Don Bigg was the main focus of criticism for ‘selling out’. Other rappers like H-Kayne were invited, but refused to attend, fearing that performing for a political party would result in them losing their independence as artists. The accusations of co-option subsequently further increased, particularly on three occasions: first, during the February 20 demonstrations in 2011 when the rapper criticized the demonstrators; second, during the summer of 2013 when the rapper was invited to dine at the Royal Palace to celebrate la fête du Trône (Throne Day); and third, later that year when he received a Royal Medal. Despite the fact that other rappers such as H-Kayne and Fnaïre also received royal medals and invitations to the palace, Don Bigg has become a symbol of the state co-opted rapper. This perception of co-option is depicted in a cartoon published on a Moroccan online news site (Fig. 5.2). The cartoon shows Don Bigg

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Fig. 5.2  Cartoon presenting Don Bigg as a co-opted rapper. Source Internet, artist ‘Imad’

(tagged as “small”) drawn as a wind-up toy on a stage below which is written in Arabic “the festival of people’s money” (mahrajan flus ashsha3b). On the stage Don Bigg is shown to sing “put your hands up, and keep them up, put your hands up” (haz yaddak lfoug o b9a hazhum! haut les mains!). In the audience, there is a young man, with a t-shirt that reads “son of the people” (weld cha3b), holding up his hands and praising the rapper: “yeah, dope, Khasser” (ouéé, nari, khasser) referring to his previous nickname. As the article in TelQuel (January 22, 2010) suggests, the transition from El Khasser to Don Bigg is significant as this change of name reflects the changes in the rapper’s music production and perception of society and politics. While the fan has his hands up, a hand slips into his pocket and the alleged robber says “quick, quick, while he’s distracted”. In the background, an old man is selling all kinds of drugs, cigarettes and nuts. This scene not only represents Don Bigg as a puppet of power, but also confirms the suspicion that music festivals are using people’s money to promote Makhzen artists.

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The festivalization of urban spaces is brought up, relating Don Bigg to this phenomenon. The cartoonist, however, oversimplifies the rapper’s work, failing also to depict festivals beyond the narrative of state corruption. Accusations of benefiting from state money and changing politics were strengthened due to the fact that the rapper has capitalized on urban spaces to associate himself with a tradition of cultural resistance and the urban underprivileged youth. This tradition is inherited from the cultural production that flourished during the 1970s in the poor neighbourhood of Hay Mohammadi in Casablanca. Two songs from his first album Mgharba Tal Mout (2006), and his most controversial single “Mabghitch” (I Don’t Want To, 2011), are key in understanding this changing relation between the rapper and local narratives of resistance. The first songs engage with everyday life and the city’s neighbourhoods to assert the rapper’s love of his city and nation, making his music part of a cultural tradition that connects Casablanca to the country’s culture of resistance. The second track changes Don Bigg’s narrative from engaging with everyday experiences to focusing on the political state of the nation, hindering his connection with urban underprivileged youth and the power of his songs as resistant music production. In the song “Mgharba Tal Mout” from his first album, Don Bigg relates the difficulties of his daily life, including being a rapper and the release of his album. He establishes his connection with Casablanca at the end of the track by naming all the neighbourhoods of the city and emphasizing their importance: Moroccans until death For all old dusty neighborhoods Casablanca today, brought out for you Bigg  With you, and for you Roches Noires

 gharba Tal Lmout M Lga3 drouba lmghabrine, fhamtini Casablanca lyoum, kharjat likoum Bigg M3akom, w likoum/ Hay Mohammadi, Barnoussi, Beau Séjour, Bachkou, Ain Sbaa, Bin Lemdoune, Medina Qadima, Derb Ghallef, Sidi Othman, Hay My Rchid, Sbata, Maarif, Hay Hassani, Ain Chock, Hay Inara, Derb Sultan

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The first place named by Don Bigg is Roches Noires, where he grew up. Although it is near the poor neighbourhood of Hay Mohammadi, Roches Noires is generally understood to be one for middle-class families. These are not the only locations mentioned in the song: the rapper also references other places in Casablanca, like the well-known Sa’ada cinema located in Hay Mohammadi: “Guys standing next to Sa’ada are bouncing” (Drari mser7a 7da Sa3ada ssmoum fiha katkazz). By drawing on familiar urban spaces, Don Bigg establishes a relatable emotional bond with his audience. The significance of the neighbourhood in Don Bigg’s work reemerges in the track “Bladi Blad” (My Country is a Country, 2006). Don Bigg, in a collaboration with rapper Alfaress where the rapper denounces the country’s malaises including poverty and corruption, includes in this song one of Nass El Ghiwane’s most popular songs called “Lbtana” (The Sheep’s Hide, n.d.). The lyrics come from the introduction of the song, which goes as follows: Slaves of money, slaves of money, Oh you stone hearts We are living the life of the flea in the sheep’s hide There’s a huge difference between apple and pomegranate But what’s the difference between you, and you, and you and me!

3bid sank, 3bid sank l’me3boud ya gloub le7jar 3aychine 3icht debbana f’lbtana Rah far9 3dim bin teffa7 w rommana Wachmen far9 bin nta, wnta, wnta w ana!

Although it is believed that this song had a Political meaning in which Nass El Ghiwane denounced Hassan II’s oppression, Omar Sayyed stated in an interview that the song had no such political agenda (Muhanna and Sayyed 2003: 146). As Sayyed explained, this song related to the fact that “the world of our grandparents was disappearing—or had disappeared already—and as much as we thought that we were on our way to something better, we had also lost something enormous” (Muhanna and Sayyed 2003: 146). Despite Omar Sayyed’s opposition to a political interpretation, the song is political in the sense that it deals with the changes in the country: “We—Moroccans, our generation—were living

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within the remains of something that no longer exists” (Muhanna and Sayyed 2003: 146). In this sense, the song is not only present Political, but also social criticism as it tries to situate Moroccans within their current context between the ‘old’ Morocco and the ‘new’ one, and question those who have benefited from the new Morocco at the expense of the masses. The last sentence of the skit emphasizes the social distinctions that the rappers, Don Bigg and Alfaress, have denounced throughout the rest of the song, but also the differences between older and younger generations. Using a song from such an important group in contemporary Moroccan culture not only connects Don Bigg and Alfaress to their national past, but also binds them to a very specific discourse on resistance and the power of the people embodied by Nass El Ghiwane’s legacy. Despite Sayyed’s explanations, the song was received—that is, decoded—as a Political confrontation against King Hassan II. The argument here is that despite the fact that Don Bigg presents himself as the voice of the poor and is portrayed as such by the magazine TelQuel, his narrative is shaped as resistant because of his association to a local cultural tradition of dissent both through his lyrics and through the images he has used to promote his cultural production. The connection between Nass El Ghiwane, the city of Casablanca and Don Bigg occurs in the image the rapper employs to promote his new recording label and studio, DBF Studios (Fig. 5.3). This picture references important locations of Casablanca: the Hassan II mosque, the Twin Centre, the wall of the old medina with the image of Nass El Ghiwane, and the famous cupola in United Nations Square. These are all symbols of power, respectively religious, economic, historical and cultural. The association with Moroccan popular music and its identification with the working class give Don Bigg credibility and ‘authenticity’

Fig. 5.3  Cover image of DBF Studios

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as a Moroccan rapper and allow him to connect with the narrative of resistance of Nass El Ghiwane praised by a large sector of Moroccan society and commentators on Moroccan culture. Miller and Caubet (2012) specifically elaborate a resistance versus co-option, authentic versus inauthentic narrative by comparing Nass El Ghiwane, as an example of artistic resistance, to Moroccan rappers’ lack of Political activism. Miller and Caubet claim that the artists of the ‘new’ urban scene like Bigg present a “lucid vision of their own country, which they love and want to improve” (2012: 6); however, they question the commitment of these artists to the pro-democracy F20 Movement (2012: 8). Don Bigg is the focus of these commentaries, owing to his reaction to the F20 in his song and music video “Mabghitch” (I Don’t Want To, 2011).

Views from Above The song “Mabghitch” denounces political corruption, and lack of employment and opportunities for youth to fulfil their dreams. The music video for this song is significant in understanding the symbolic position of power from where Don Bigg speaks to the city and to Moroccans. While the music video is set in different parts of the city, the last section is shot from the roof of the Twin Centre in Casablanca. These shots strategically point towards the Hassan II mosque in the background. This is the moment when the rapper repeats the motto of the country, taking the last three words of the song from Morocco’s national anthem: “Allah, El Watan, El Malik” (God, the Nation, The King). The shots of Don Bigg from the rooftop of one of the tallest buildings in the city, overlooking the second largest mosque in the world, reinforce the rapper’s words. Bigg re-enacts the national anthem employing the symbolism of the Hassan II mosque to assert not only his religious identity as Muslim, but his loyalty to the king and the Makhzen’s agenda. Combs-Schilling (1999: 205) argues that King Hassan II’s aim in building this mosque was to create a new national icon. By establishing such a sacred site in Casablanca, the king hoped to connect with the population of a city where his legitimacy was at stake (Combs-Schilling 1999: 192). However, as Combs-Schilling claims, this space did not bring the king closer to his people, but “sets off the king as monumentally different” (1999: 205). The construction of the mosque was controversial as Moroccans were demanded to pay for its expenses. In spite of the disputes on the mosque’s construction, the view of the

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tall minaret of the Hassan II mosque from one rooftop in the Casablanca Twin Centre provides Don Bigg with a sense of empowerment. Drawing on Certeau, from the vantage point of the rooftops, the observer is able to see the whole, “totalizing the most immoderate of human texts” (1984: 92). As Certeau states, when observing New York from the original World Trade Center, this elevation transforms the world “into a text that lies before one’s eyes” (1984: 92). The rooftops provide a view that allows Don Bigg to convey a feeling of control over the totality of the city. While in “Mgharba Tal Mout” the rapper uses everyday-life references in naming all neighbourhoods of the city, he shoots the end of “Mabghitch” from the top of the Twin Centre providing him with a privileged view of the city. Moreover, as epicentre of the affluent neighbourhood of Maarif, the Twin Centre as symbol of economic power evidences the change in the rapper’s work. Other rappers have also used the image of the Casablanca Twin Centre as a signifier of social difference. For example, Muslim in his song “Fine 7a9na” (Where Are Our Rights?, 2010) sings, “Because there are kids of the slums and kids of the Twins” (7it kayn wld l karian w kayn weld Twin), emphasizing the socio-economic divide between rich and poor neighbourhoods. Beyond political and socio-economic readings, these building are also a public meeting space for young people, as Dizzy DROS states in his song “Cazafonia” (2011). The rapper sings, “Been hiding for a while and now he comes out to put his face between the Twins” (Ghber bzzaf daba khrej y7at kmmarto bin Twin). In another of his songs, “Men Hna” (From Here, 2012), Dizzy DROS raps: “Whenever they pass beside the Twins they’ll recognize me like George Clooney” (inma ghaydouzou men goddam Twin ghay3arfouni, George Clooney). For this young rapper, the Twins represent the public space where he goes to be seen and recognized as, surrounded by foreign shops such as Zara and Rip Curl, they have become a site of capitalism and consumerism and thus a magnet for trendy and cool youth who want to challenge tradition. The significance of “Mabghitch” goes beyond its lyrics, as it was the only music video that Don Bigg has released as a solo artist until then. Previously, Don Bigg had been featured in music videos such as “Men Zan9a LZan9a” (From One Street to Another, 2004) by Casa Crew where he does not sing, and also in the track “Bladi” (My Country, 2007) in which he sings with Ahmed Soultan and rapper Azed. He also appears in the clip of another collaboration with other French and Dutch rappers called “One Life”

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(2010) and the video clip of the song commissioned by Maroc Telecom “Sma3ni” (Listen to Me, 2007) together with H-Kayne and the singer Khansa Batma. However, the fact that “Mabghitch” is Don Bigg’s only solo music video reveals the important implications of this song that resorted to visual representations to assert the harsh attack to the F20 and any opposition to the pillars of the nation aimed at containing the effects of the 2010– 2011 popular uprisings in the region. Another rap music video capitalized on rooftops to convey the state’s power. The song “Feels So Right” (2012) is performed by the rap group Rwapa Crew and the rock band Babel, winners of Génération Mawazine 2011, Mawazine’s talent contest in which musicians participate in different categories (namely rap, rock and fusion). The prize that year was to record a music video and a song with the world-renowned producer RedOne from Tetouan, now based in the United States. Génération Mawazine paid for the production of a track and music video entirely shot in Marrakech, between the streets of the old medina, the new Marrakech Royal Theatre and the SO Lounge, one of the numerous trendy nightclubs of the city. The video starts with a Moroccan flag flying over the desert. Then, RedOne appears standing at the top of the Royal Theatre with the national flag beside him and a vocalist from Babel singing in English, “I’m alive, I’m alive”. After that, the rappers start their routine rapping as they walk through the streets of Marrakech and stand beside the ancient walls of the medina with red and green scarves. Then Babel appears inside a building of the old town, belting out the chorus in English: Feels so right I’m alive, I’m alive I’m excited Never felt this way before I’m alive, I’m alive, so excited, high, high in the sky It’s amazing, I’ll be waiting all my life And tonight, I’m alive, It feels so right

While they are delivering the chorus, there are also shots of Rwapa Crew and members of Babel singing on the rooftops and on top of the city walls. After the first chorus, Rwapa Crew’s second verse is performed on a stage inside a club and again in the souks of the old medina. After the second chorus, the stage fills up with girls dressed in shiny dresses

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and mini-skirts performing a choreographed dance, a rare occurrence in Moroccan rap. The final chorus is performed in the mythical Jmaa El Fna Square. Both groups and RedOne stand together on a stage surrounded by the audience. Nowhere in the lyrics of this song do the groups mention the city of Marrakech or show urban locations in the video, as the other songs analysed above did, signalling that the location of the video is related to a commercial reason rather than an emotional attachment. With the aim of promoting Morocco’s image nationally and internationally, images in “Feels So Right” draw on touristic symbols such as the desert and the beautiful medina of Marrakech, with an English translation of the lyrics embedded in the video posted on YouTube. The participation in the video of the producer RedOne—rather unusual—is also linked to promotion of Morocco’s trendy and ‘modern’ image internationally. RedOne is known internationally because of his work with artists like Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez, among many others. The lyrics of the song follow a patriotic narrative emphasizing unity, optimism and peaceful coexistence and condemning dissonant voices as discussed in previous chapters. The rappers go on to sing in Darija:1 let’s live in peace let’s be strong  let’s be aware and believe without trouble  be brave Moroccans!

N3icho merta7ine k ounou 9ssa7ine fi9ou ti9ou ah ma tkounouch 9ba7ine koun meghribi rajel

The rappers stress the fact that Moroccans are brave and strong. It must be noted that the Darija word for ‘brave’ (rajel) is the same as the one used for ‘men’, denoting once again the gendered space that is national unity including only men. Moreover, they insist on the idea of pride and the fight for the country’s education: Be brave Moroccans and say, say, say I’ll fight for my country  Be, be, a bit educated say, say, say My name is Moroccan

K  oun meghribi rajel goul, goul, goul 3  la bladi n9atel koun, koun, 9ari chwia g oul, goul, goul m  eghribi smiya

These lyrics emphasize the empowered position of rappers, singers and producers, standing on top of recognizable buildings in Marrakech’s

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landscape. The fact that “Feels So Right” was released a few months after the MENA uprisings in 2011 and the launch of the pro-democracy F20 Movement explains the lyrics, the video’s perspective and the use of patriotic symbols as a way to discourage dissent. Significantly, although rap groups could participate in the Génération Mawazine talent contest, in 2011, the main Mawazine festival did not invite any rap groups. Although during the first years of Mawazine, from 2002 to 2005, Moroccan rap was absent from the festival, since 2006 Moroccan rappers have performed in it, with the exception of June 2011. The privileged position of rappers in “Mabghitch” and “Feels So Right” on rooftops separates them from the rest of the city. Although powerful, this position enforces an emotional detachment from the everyday lives of underprivileged Moroccan youth. Even if these songs are meant to counter the effects of pro-democracy demonstrations and show footage of trendy urban centres like nightclubs in Marrakech and the Twin Centre in Casablanca, these songs have failed to reach the youth in a significant manner. The music video of “Feels So Right” was published on January 31, 2012, but up until September 2013 had had only 120,727 views. Other rap songs published during the same period gained many more views: for example “Cazafonia” released on YouTube just two months earlier in November 2011 had had nearly one million views by September 2013. Even music videos released later, like Masta Flow and MC Caprice’s “7di Mennou” published in March 2012, had had 299,033 views by September 2013, more than double those of “Feels So Right”. Similarly, Don Bigg’s song and clip “Mabghitch” (2011), with less than 300,000 views on YouTube, remains far below those for Muslim’s single “Law Kan Lwa9i3 Law7a” (2011), which was released six months before in June 2011, and had had nearly three million views by September 2013.

Contentious Spaces, Posters and Casablanca Once a slaughterhouse, L’Batwar, or L’Battoir in Darija, is situated on the edge of the underprivileged neighbourhood of Hay Mohammadi. Nowadays, L’Batwar is better known as a cultural space for the young people of Casablanca. This abandoned slaughterhouse is nevertheless gated, with a security guard controlling the entrance, and hosts a small mosque attended by neighbours at prayer time. A collective known as La Fabrique Culturelle des Abattoirs de Casablanca, formed by a group of artistic and cultural associations in the city including the

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EAC-L’Boulevart, organizers of L’Boulevard, has been fighting since 2008 to officially convert the old slaughterhouse into a cultural space. Since its conception in 1999, part of the Festival L’Boulevard has taken place in L’Batwar, and this is where many rappers such as H-Kayne, Don Bigg, Mobydick and Dizzy DROS have performed throughout the years. L’Batwar has become a benchmark for hip hop culture in the city, used by the youth to paint graffiti and by rappers to record their music videos. It hosts many other smaller events related to hip hop culture, such as a gig to celebrate slam, an oral poetry genre of hip hop, that took place during the summer of 2012 and 2013 with the participation of one of the pioneers of Moroccan rap, Koman and his crew Thug Gang. This space has hosted many rap videos such as “A la Marocaine” (2011) by Hatim from H-Kayne, but also lesser known songs such as “L’feeling Dayz” (2010) by Casa System. In 2010 Muslim shot the music video of the song “Fine 7a9na” (Where Are Our Rights?‚ 2010) in L’Batwar, a collaboration with Chaht Man. The space supports the lyrics of this song where Muslim creates a narrative focused on empowering the people and helping them reclaim their agency to act. Muslim denounces the fact that having a voice is useless if no one is listening: “I don’t want my voice to be the echo at the bottom of a well” (mabghitch sawti yb9a ghe sda f l9a3 del ber). Muslim not only wants the right to speak, he wants change to result from this act. As he insists, “my country is mine even if rights are lost” (bladi teb9a bladi wakha 7a9 fiha daya3); he refuses to be co-opted by the system and to give up. In this music video, the lyrics combine with the footage of L’Batwar, using images of the empty and abandoned space as a site that embodies marginality but also the idea of state-independent culture built up over the years thanks to the organization of L’Boulevard festival and other cultural uses. During my fieldwork, I had the chance to visit L’Batwar many times, including in January 2012 to observe the shooting of a music video by the members of Casa Crew, Masta Flow and MC Caprice, of their song “7di Mennou” (Be Careful with Him, 2012), a song about ‘fake’ friends and people who talk about others behind their backs. I also visited L’Batwar when in 2013 it became a space of contention. After years of struggle for official recognition of L’Batwar, in 2013 it was suddenly occupied by 80 civil servants’ cars, which took over the entire space. The civil society reacted promptly and announced the organization of a cultural event called Machri9 Al Anwar (literally translates as Source of Lights) on March 2, to protest against the use of L’Batwar as a parking

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lot and regain the space for culture. The name of the event is inspired by the second line of the Moroccan national anthem to reclaim culture as a fundamental element in the construction of the nation and to reconcile with urban spaces. Protesters cleverly borrowed from the national anthem to counter typical accusations of unpatriotic criticisms to any movement that challenged power. At the same time, the reference to the national anthem turned L’Batwar into a patriotic space for youth’s independent artistic production. Machri9 Al Anwar was hastily set up and included diverse cultural events such as children’s theatre, a souk, dance and concerts. Young filmmakers and activists from the local group Guerrilla Cinema also participated, filming the festival as they told me when I met them there. A simple poster, all in black and white except for a big yellow and orange sun setting over an image of the walls that surround L’Batwar, was used to communicate online and offline that the festival was taking place (Fig. 5.4). This image represents the

Fig. 5.4  Poster of Machri9 al Anwar in Casablanca 2013

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name of the event, Source of Lights, implying that L’Batwar is a space for national creativity as it is likened also to the national anthem known by every Moroccan. Written in French, Arabic calligraphy and alphanumeric Latinized Arabic, the poster clearly transmits the message: L’Batwar is a space for culture and national cultural expression not only on this one day, it must be a permanent one too. This collective action, in which cultural associations, artists and citizens combined efforts to resist the state’s effort to close the space, concluded in success for the people of Casablanca. This revealed the power of the people and their cultural action: the location has never been used since as a parking lot and has continued to host artistic events. Another case of communication of discontent through posters in the so-called digital era took place later that year. The official poster of L’Boulevard 2013 is an example of the artistic resistance to the Makhzen in a difficult year where diverse events caused popular protest. In the summer of 2013, a Spanish-Iraqi paedophile named Daniel Galván, who had been sentenced to 30 years in prison for raping 11 children in Kenitra, received a royal pardon and was released. Large sections of the population throughout Morocco reacted with fury, protesting especially in front of the Parliament in Rabat. Although demonstrations are common in this area, occurring weekly, this particular protest was brutally repressed by the police, not only in Rabat but also in Tangiers and other cities. In the end, although Galván was already in Spain, the king revoked the pardon, allowing the protesters to regard their actions as a triumph for the people and proof of their ascendancy over the king’s power in one of the most serious crises since his accession. Significantly, a few weeks after this event, rappers who had begun their careers in L’Boulevard festival, like Don Bigg and H-Kayne, were invited to a dinner in the palace and received a Royal Medal. Even though artists are often invited to royal events, on this occasion these rappers were particularly heavily criticized due to their silence during the Daniel Galván affair. The poster of L’Boulevard released in September 2013 epitomized the troubled summer by presenting an image representing ‘resistance’. It shows a person, probably a young man, pushing against two walls, which hold the city of Casablanca (Fig. 5.5). Hicham Bahou, one of the founders of the festival, confirmed to me in a visit to Boultek in Technopark (Casablanca) on September 3, 2013, days before the festival started, that the poster was meant to symbolize cultural resistance. By pushing against two walls, the young man holds the city of Casablanca that would otherwise collapse, alluding to the important role of people in building and

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Fig. 5.5  Poster of Festival L’Boulevard 2013

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maintaining the city. The issue with the poster, however, is that once again the artists chose a man to represent resistance, feeding into the neglect of women even among the most rebellious sectors of society. While depicting a single person helps to transmit the message of opposition, the use of a male body takes away from the intended aim of the poster. Further, the poster for L’Boulevard capitalizes on Casablanca’s architectural diversity: the combination of the old medina, the colonial construction and the mosques demonstrates the complexity of the city. The image does not divide the old and the new parts of the city, thus melding all the different urban spaces into one. Moreover, the viewpoint is from below, calling attention to the people and their everyday lives. The Twin Centre, widely used as a symbol of the city’s iconography within rap songs and music videos as discussed earlier, appears at the top of the image, yet the leading role in this representation of Casablanca is for the old medina placed in front. As with L’Batwar, the city authorities have neglected the old medina. Unlike the noticeable investment in the old medinas of touristic cities like Marrakech and Fes, the old town of Casablanca has not received the necessary investment to protect its cultural heritage. L’Boulevard has tried to put an end to this abandonment by organizing events in this area of the city as part of the festival. One of these brought national and international graffiti artists to the old medina to paint some of the walls, forcing both everyday passers-by and reporters to turn their attention to these old buildings. One of the artworks shows an old lady carrying on her back buildings that represent the city of Casablanca. Contrary to the previous images, the artist here highlights the important role of women in giving life to urban centres in the country. Furthermore, the buildings of the old medina of Casablanca in the poster for L’Boulevard have embedded in them hidden messages against the Makhzen. The names of shops, driving schools and grocery stores hide clues containing messages of discontent with regard to various national and international events. One grocery store is called “Butcher Palestine” in clear protest against the occupation of Palestine by Israeli forces. The poster also includes a nursery called “Daniel Nursery School”, alluding to the Daniel Galván affair. The fact that these hidden messages are placed alongside logos of the event’s official sponsors, including public television and the telecommunications company INWI belonging to SNI (the private holding controlled by the royal family), creatively sharpens a message of resistance against tight control over cultural production. The fact that the messages are hidden, however, makes

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it easier for the state to ignore these acts of dissent as they would only be decoded by an attentive observer.

Reimaging the City Beyond Resistance Beyond viewpoints from above and below that represent contentious narratives, Moroccan rappers have depicted and reconfigured their cities’ landscapes from a youthful, though mainly masculine, everyday stand. The rapid urbanization of cities like Casablanca and Tangiers in the last decades has bestowed these in particular with a status as important economic, political and cultural hubs in the country and the northern region respectively. Looking at songs that creatively narrate the everyday life in these urban spaces allows us to understand life beyond capital-P Politics. Breaking away from stagnant frameworks that continually read non-Western rap music as Political requires us to also study music that not only depicts the effects of social, political and economic events in Morocco, but creatively engages with local youth’s everyday lives. The video clip of the song “Cazafonia” (2011), released in the aftermath of the MENA uprisings when the F20 had lost momentum, serves to present an alternative picture of Casablanca. In this song, rapper Dizzy DROS offers a sketch of the city through the eyes of a young Moroccan from a working-class neighbourhood. The music video offers the viewer a variety of colour-saturated shots to present a sunny city full of colour. The rapper appears dressed in khaki trousers, red Converse shoes, golden chains, a baseball cap and a bandana, going around Casablanca in a luxurious Range Rover. This image is re-enacted in the lyrics of the song with references to hip hop garments like the New Era caps and bandanas: “New Era on the head to one side and the bandana” (New Era foug rass tay7a jenb wl bandana). References to the United States are performed through Dizzy DROS’ recreation of the walk created by the Crips, a West Coast gang, to which he also refers in the lyrics: “If we had guns the jails would be full of red and green people like the Crips & Blood” (Koun kanou 3andna frada kourra l7abss ghada tnod Bin l7mar m3a lkhdar b7al l’Crips wl Bloods). The colours red and green not only reference the national flag, but are also the respective colours of the football teams in Casablanca, Wydad Athletic Club and Raja Club Athletic. The connection between the US and Morocco is embedded in the name of the song, “Cazafonia”, a hybrid between Casablanca and California. In the lyrics, the rapper claims “We’ll bring Cali to you

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and we’ll put it in Caza” (Ghanjibou likom Cali ghan7attoha f’Caza), explaining how the image of California mediated through West Coast rap has influenced him. The fact that the main scenes were shot in the rich neighbourhood of California in Casablanca suggests, however, criticisms of an idealized way of life of the privileged urban. In “Cazafonia” Dizzy DROS dwells on social inequities in relation to different aspects of the city: “In this huge city, everyone gets his daily payment stealing or begging” (F’had lmdina dyal sakht; Koulchi baghi yjib nharo Ya b’chafra ya b’llaht). The fact that Dizzy DROS reflects on social inequities while travelling in a Range Rover resonates with the argument within US rap that hip hop’s marginality has become official and routinized. Feelings of disenchantment shared by much of the underprivileged global youth are also present in young Moroccan artists. As DROS explains, rappers do not receive any help to gain presence in public spaces such as radio or TV: We’re struggling to make everything by ourselves, no one, no one came to us and said “look, we’re gonna pass your songs on the radio, we’re gonna pass you on TV”. So we did impose ourselves. And this is a particularity that I really appreciate in Moroccan rap. (Interviewed by author, Casablanca, February 15, 2012)

Claiming ownership of public spaces resembles the genesis of hip hop culture, as DROS stated: When you start to search about hip hop the thing that gets stuck in your mind is that it’s music created by people who had nothing. So they really struggled for it to face racism, to face the social problems that they had in the US in the middle of the 70s and beginning of the 80s. (Interviewed by author, Casablanca, February 15, 2012)

Hip hop’s historical narrative that relates this culture to social struggle within the black and Hispanic communities in the US allows Dizzy DROS to engage locally with the feelings of alienation of Morocco’s youth. This sense of marginality is emphasized by the lack of mobility of urban youth belonging to lower classes. DROS articulates this idea in the chorus of “Cazafonia”: “We live in Cazafonia, we die in Cazafonia, we go around and we don’t get far from Cazafonia” (Kan3icho Cazafonia; Kanmoutou Cazafonia; Kandoro ga3 l9nat w ga3ma nfoutou Cazafonia).

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This claustrophobic space they inhabit is not simply Casablanca. It is a space where they are physically in this Northern African city, but connected through hip hop culture with youth around the world. While DROS’ song may be interpreted as a simple imitation of US rappers, cultural imperialism frameworks have proved to be problematic and reductionist, and contested by many scholars in popular music (Born and Hesmondhalgh 2000; Frith 1991; Garofalo 1993; Mitchell Mitchell 2001; Shuker 1994; Stokes 2004). In this song, DROS does not simply substitute Morocco for the United States. The rapper constructs a picture that reflects the multiple aspects of his daily life such as getting a haircut or sharing time with friends, while discussing the problems encountered in the city which are part of the lives of many young people in other parts of the globe. The goal is to reshape and reimagine the city in the youth’s own terms, beyond not only the authority of the state, but of older generations too. To emphasize this message, the chorus repeats “Cazafonia is ours” (“Cazafonia dylna dyalna”). Although they cannot escape from Casablanca, they attempt to own it, even renaming it as Cazafonia. The mere fact that the rapper writes the city with a “z” instead of an “s” contributes to claiming his right to depict his city and his life in his own terms. A song that plays in similar terms with the name of Casablanca is Don Bigg’s “Casanegra” (2009). Initially planned as the theme song for the movie of the same name, “Casanegra” presents a city governed by alcohol, drugs and prostitution:

His father in law is a drunk I see you in the bar daily a glass dropped on your clothes it seems like You’ll never go back straight to the path That’s what he hears from all those who’d been taken by the river “Well take me to Sweden too”, weed baby Pass the red joint let him know that today is not Eid

Rajel mo skayri, hayli hayli Kanchofk flbar daily kass mekhwi 3la 7wayj bayn li Beli ma3amrek maghadi tssegem o tgad Hadi lhedra li kissme3ha mn ga3 li dahom lwad “Wa dini tana l’swid”, weed baby Dawer jwan l7mer khalih ynssa blli lyom machi l3id

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Casa is dark from all sides dark from the use of hashish and what is said about girls’ backsides dark for those who wait for their parents to give them change

Casa ka7la ghi men terf l terf Ka7la men jiht l7chich o liygol 3al’bnat tarf Ka7la li ytssena walidih ydawro lih sarf

In these lines, the audience sinks into some of the daily struggles of many of the city’s citizens. Lack of money and dreams of migration are part of the experiences of a physically and mentally wasted urban underprivileged youth. A message of change is embedded in the use of key figures from the civil rights movement. Towards the end of the song, Don Bigg performs a speech in Darija that recreates Dr Martin Luther King’s popular speech saying, “Yesterday I had a dream” (lbareh hlamt helma). As the rapper continues, he dreams of: A Morocco with human rights for you and me… A Morocco with an infrastructure and not many complaints A Morocco with roads without holes A Morocco with a lot of generosity… A Morocco with government full of good ministers and without thieves A literate Morocco not an angry Morocco

Mghrib fih 7o9o9 l insan lik o lia… Mghrib fih l’infrastructure o 9allat chkwa Mghrib fih tor9an o 7fari msdouda Mghrib l karam oljoud walaboudd… Mghrib fih wizara mhayba bl wozara o 9ellat chffara Mghrib 9ari mghrib wa3i machi Mghrib ka3i

These lines are followed by one which draws on a key slogan in President’s Barack Obama first presidential campaign: Don Bigg states that he dreams of “A Morocco of ‘Yes we can’ not a Morocco of ‘Yes if only’” (Mghrib dyal ‘Yes we can’ machi Mghrib dyal ‘Yes law kan’). The resonance with civil rights activism allows the rapper to inspire Moroccans to believe that change is possible. Far from a racial discourse, Don Bigg’s focus is the socio-economic status of the majority of Moroccans as a consequence of neoliberal politics. This is discussed

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in the movie Casanegra (2009) in similar terms. In the movie, the protagonists, two young Moroccans from Casablanca, “are caught in the vicious web of economic need, social injustices and affective alienation” (Bahmad 2013: 16). The city of Casablanca serves this movie to narrate the contradictions created by late capitalism, which are especially evident in the youth’s frustrations at a time defined by intense neoliberal economic policies. These policies, which have taken place over the last 30 years, have had no significant positive effect on the poverty rate, which remains at 18% in urban areas (Cohen and Jaidi 2006: 39). The consequences of neoliberal polices are not unique to Casablanca. In Muslim’s song “Tanja for Life” (Tangiers for Life, 2009), the rapper blames the decadence on unbridled foreign influence: Tell me Tangiers, why your night became dirty Tell me, why have your people become disfigured Tell me, are these girls who got naked your girls? Are these people sleeping in the cold your sons? Tell me why life became difficult for you? Where did safety go and where did chaos come from? Tangiers is the bride of the north They prettify you with casinos and bars Buses are coming to you from every land You got full You don’t recognize your sons from the neighbours’ sons anymore Tangiers these people prettified you for evil

ya Tanja 9oli 3lach lilek twesakh 9oli 3lach benadem fik temsakh 9oli had lebnat li t3araw wach benatek hado li na3sin felberd wach weladek 9oli 3lach l3icha fik wlat se3iba fayn mcha l2aman wmayen jatna sayba Tanja 3arousat chamal zeynouk b casinos w berane men kol ard 9esdok lkiran 3marti ya Tanja mab9iti katmiyez wladek men wlad ljiiran Tanja had nass zeynouk nelmonkar

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For Muslim, Tangiers is damaged because the city has grown so much, resulting in increased poverty, alcoholism, unsafe streets and women wearing fewer clothes. The chorus of the song depicts the contrast between the beauty of the city where he grew up and the fact of his awareness that the city has also brought pain: Where I was born, where I grew up, where I smile, it’s always running through my blood, Tangiers for life where I live, where I die, where I wrote my name with my blood in its walls, Tangiers for life

fiha khla9t fiha kbert fiha d7ekt w dayman jarya f demi Tanja for life fiha n3ish fiha nmout fiha ktebt bdemi 3la l7yout ismi Tanja for life

The tone of these lines connects with the song “Cazafonia” as both rappers declare their intention of living and dying in their cities as proof of total engagement. Both rappers tap into the emotional connection with their hometowns without falling into idealized depictions. While shedding light on socio-economic issues, they declare their intention to resist forces that would drive them away and fight for a better future. The determination to battle becomes evident in Muslim’s use of the northern region’s past as a rebellious area. In the abovementioned song he claims: Tangiers has a rebellious nature  Even if it gets tough with me I am still its son

 anja 3anda tebi3a metmerda T w  akha te9sa73lia kanb9a welda

Despite the hardship of urban youth in Tangiers, the city empowers them to rebel together by providing a free space to voice their frustrations: “I’m free in the cursed streets” (l7or f zna9i lmen7ousa). Therefore, even if the changes in the city caused by neoliberal economic policies and the influence of tourism have affected young people negatively in terms of poverty and drug abuse, Muslim claims the freedom and power of youth remain. As we have discussed, Muslim explores the lives of the urban underprivileged youth in many of his songs, a fact that

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has allowed him to relate to a large bulk of the Moroccan population. Beyond lyrics and music videos, Muslim, Don Bigg and Dizzy DROS have become well known in the country, not only for their capital-P politics, but also, of course, for their rapping skills. For sure, local audiences decode these songs in a myriad of ways; yet essential to listening to music over and over again is the power of establishing an emotional connection between the artists and the audience. Visual communications can help music to transmit new and complex layers of meaning, including the struggle to gain power. Whether through a music video, a cartoon or a festival poster, it is clear that cultural actors and youth in Moroccan urban centres are ready to imagine their cities in their own terms, fighting for the right to reshape their urban spaces. The state is ready to fight too, sponsoring rappers’ careers and physically occupying cultural spaces. Privileged viewpoints that loom above the people may be effective in asserting the dominant power of state narratives. However, the distance to the ground from these tall buildings embodies a lack of emotional connection, also present in empty lyrics. While rooftops can represent power, it is in the familiar streets, neighbourhoods and squares where life happens for most Moroccans. Songs that are able to present nuanced and dynamic pictures of the cities, especially for young people with limited voice in the country’s politics, therefore have a better chance of channelling resistance to the overwhelming power of the state.

Note 1. I have altered the English subtitles available with the official music video to provide a more literal translation of the Darija verses.

References Bahmad, J. 2013. From Casablanca to Casanegra: Neoliberal Globalization and Disaffected Youth in Moroccan Urban Cinema. Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 6: 15–35. Belghazi, T. 2006. Festivalization of Urban Space in Morocco. Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies 15 (1): 97–107. Ben-Layashi, S. 2013. Feet on the Earth, Head in the Clouds: What do Moroccan Youths Dream of? In Contemporary Morocco: State, Politics and Society Under Mohammed VI, ed. B. Maddy-Weitzman and D. Zisenwine, 141–160. Routledge: Milton Park, Abingdon.

142  C. Moreno Almeida Born, G., and D. Hesmondhalgh. 2000. Introduction: On Difference, Representation, and Appropriation in Music. In Western Music and Its Others: Difference, Representation and Appropriation in Music, ed. G. Born and D. Hesmondhalgh, 374. Berkeley: University of California Press. Boukhars, A. 2011. Politics in Morocco: Executive Monarchy and Enlightened Authoritanism. London: Routledge. Boum, A. 2012a. Festivalizing Dissent in Morocco. Middle East Report 263 (Summer): 22–25. Boum, A. 2012b. Moroccan Rappers and Political Descent in the Age of the “Arab Spring”. IPRIS Maghreb Bulletin (Spring): 14–17. Boum, A. 2013. Youth, Political Activism and the Festivalization of Hip-Hop Music in Morocco. In Contemporary Morocco: State, Politics and Society Under Mohammed VI, ed. B. Maddy-Weitzman and D. Zisenwine, 161–177. Routledge: Milton Park, Abingdon. Brumberg, D. 2002. The Trap of Liberalized Autocracy. Journal of Democracy 13 (4): 56–68. Cohen, S., and L. Jaidi. 2006. Morocco: Globalization and Its Consequences. New York: Routledge. Combs-Schilling, M.E. 1999. Performing Monarchy, Staging the Nation. In In the Shadow of the Sultan: Culture, Power and Politics in Morocco, ed. R. Bourqia and M.E. Combs-Shilling, 176–214. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cooke, M. 2007. Dissident Syria: Making Oppositional Arts Official. Durham: Duke University Press. de Certeau, M. 1984. Walking in the City. The Practice of Everyday Life, 91–110. Berkeley: University of California Press. Errihani, M. 2013. The Amazigh Renaissance: Tamazigh in the Time of Mohammed VI. In Contemporary Morocco: State, Politics and Society under Mohammed VI, ed. B. Maddy-Weitzman and D. Zisenwine, 57–69. Routledge: Milton Park, Abingdon. Frith, S. 1991. A Critical Response. In Music at the Margins: Popular Music and Global Cultural Diversity, ed. D.C. Robinson, E. Buck, and M. Cuthbert, 280–287. Newbury Park: Sage Publications. Garofalo, R. 1993. Whose World, What Beat: The Transnational Music Industry, Identity, and Cultural Imperialism. World of Music 32 (2): 16–32. Hammoudi, A. 1997. Master and Disciple: The Cultural Foundations of Moroccan Authoritarianism. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press. Langlois, T. 2009. Music and Politics in North Africa. In Music and the Play of Power in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, ed. L. Nooshin, 207–227. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Ltd. Maghraoui, D. 2011. Constitutional Reforms in Morocco: Between Consensus and Subaltern Politics. The Journal of North African Studies 16 (4): 679–699.

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Miller, C., and D. Caubet. 2012. Langue et textes: des Ghiwanes à la nouvelle scène avant et après le 20 février. HAL Sciences de l’Homme et de la Societé: 1–12. Available from http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/68/26/88/ PDF/texte_FINAL_CHANSON.pdf. Mitchell, T. (ed.). 2001. Global Noise: Rap and Hip Hop Outside the USA. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan. Muhanna, E., and O. Sayyed. 2003. Folk the Kasbah. Transition 94: 132–149. Shuker, R. 1994. Understanding Popular Music. London: Routledge. Stokes, M. 2004. Music and the Global Order. Annual Review of Anthropology 33: 47–72. Wedeen, L. 1999. Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Zartman, I.W. 1990. Opposition as Support for the State. In The Arab State, ed. G. Luciano, 220–264. London: Routledge.

CHAPTER 6

Economies of Resistance

It is clear by now that understanding the intricacies of cultural patronage is key in the study of rap music in Morocco. Contrary to the way cultural industries in Western Europe and some North American countries function, the tight control over which music gets produced, broadcasted, distributed and consumed enables certain discourses while silencing others. Despite the control in a country considered by many authoritarian, rappers who do not abide by the rules of the elites are not necessarily doomed to silence. Rappers like Muslim and Mobydick, and younger generations like Dizzy DROS, the duo Shayfeen, L7a9ed‚ and 7liwa, have found ways in which to survive and continue producing their music, in spite of numerous obstacles designed for them to fail. How are these rappers able to persist in such a cultural ecology? Besides politics, which other tools is the state using to prevent young rappers succeeding in the country’s cultural field? Participant observation informs many of the unwritten and mostly unknown steps that a new artist must walk through in making music. Although discussions on political oppression and acts of resistance are a main focus of interest for commentators, researchers and journalists working for international broadcast media, little is known about the actual workings of production, distribution and consumption of rap music in the MENA region. This chapter therefore discusses the underpinnings of the music industry in Morocco. It not only explores the steps rappers (or any independent artist) must follow to produce a CD album and sell it at a music store in one of the new malls in the country, but also looks at alternative paths including ways some have found to bend © The Author(s) 2017 C. Moreno Almeida, Rap Beyond Resistance, Pop Music, Culture and Identity, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-60183-0_6

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the rules. Despite the interest in political and social matters, gaining economic profit is essential to the ability of any artist to maintain their artistic career. As hinted at in past chapters, without an economic gain, artists are unable to carry out their work. Developing strategies to resist economic hindrances is therefore an often unexplored area where artists can be political and demonstrate resistance against dominant powers. These strategies cannot however be separated from global tendencies in intellectual property and copyright, designed by major corporations in the West but having a major effect on the rest of the world. Such global intellectual rights affect non-Western cultural production because they are deeply connected with neoliberal policies. Although they are designed to protect artists, as the Moroccan experience will show, this is not necessarily the case. While these laws have failed to protect Moroccan artists and their work, including granting them their copyright profit, they have helped to tighten even more the state’s control over their music. Piracy is therefore a double-edged weapon: on the one hand, it prevents others profiting from the artist’s creation, while on the other, it allows artists to escape from the slow and inefficient but necessary bureaucracy involved in distributing music by official channels.

Economic Strategies of Cultural Dominance State plans to economically boost the cultural field have been in place since the establishment of the Ministry of Culture in the 1960s. During the 1970s, however, cultural projects were mainly managed by individuals and civil society associations and only a few had support from the ministry (Massaia 2013: 49). Demands for economic support from the ministry were meant to tackle the traditional patronage system based on ideological closeness that pursued the instrumentalization of culture. While members of the cultural field have voiced these demands for decades, the main patron of the arts continues to be the Makhzen itself through cultural associations or through members connected to the cultural milieu without apparent historical ties with the monarchy—as is the case with one of the rare independent festivals in Morocco, L’Boulevard des Jeunes Musiciens. The lack of funding has since its conception greatly affected L’Boulevard, Casablanca’s most important festival not directly controlled by the state and devoted to youth and urban culture (Callen 2006: 141). Difficulty in finding sponsors has allowed the Makhzen to step in and subtly appropriate the symbolic capital accumulated by this festival

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over the years. In 2011 and 2012, coinciding with the MENA uprisings, L’Boulevard was cancelled because of the withdrawal of its main sponsor, INWI, a telecommunications subsidiary company previously owned by ONA, a private holding owned in its majority by the monarchy. This suggests that the cancellation was also related to the MENA unrests and indicates the power of this festival to express public opposition to the Makhzen. Alienation of sponsorship rather than direct censure is the state’s preferred strategy to curb dissent. This strategy worked to cause the cessation of the controversial magazine Nichane, which was the Arabic version of TelQuel. In 2010, due to an advertiser boycott coordinated by the ONA group, the magazine was faced with financial insolvency and had to shut down. The strategy of withdrawing sponsorship provides the Makhzen with a tool to suppress independent cultural productions like magazines, newspapers and festivals without being held directly responsible or damaging the image of the monarchy. In other words, through this method, the Makhzen is not directly accused of controlling freedom of speech or of censorship. A Moroccan Fanzine devoted to the heavy metal scene, Lead Hangar, accused the state-supported festival Mawazine or, as they called it, the “festival makhzanien”, of “killing” L’Boulevard. By monopolizing the major sponsors, Mawazine has also been held responsible for the disappearance of other festivals like the Festival de Casablanca. With new organizers, Festival de Casablanca reappeared in 2017 with a new name, Casa Festival as part of an effort to rebrand the city under the name and logo “WeCasablanca”. According to the founders of L’Boulevard, the sponsors prefer to support a festival with two million spectators divided across multiple locations rather than a relatively small festival like L’Boulevard with only around 100,000 attendees. Due to funding difficulties, in 2009 the EAC-L’Boulevart association, in charge of organizing L’Boulevard festival, accepted a cheque from the king for two million dirhams (£143,000) to pay off part of its debts. This royal funding also helped to launch the Boultek Project, which was designed, among other things, to provide a recording studio for artists. The Boultek Project received a second cheque from the king in 2011. Despite the overwhelming control of the Makhzen over independent initiatives like L’Boulevard des Jeunes Musiciens, the EAC-L’Boulevart association has profited from official sponsorship while resisting the attempts of the Makhzen to control the space where they develop their cultural activities, like L’Batwar as discussed in Chap. 5. In 2013, INWI returned as the main sponsor of L’Boulevard granting funds for two years. While L’Boulevard remains one of the few big music festivals

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managed independently of the Makhzen, it continues to be at the mercy of the economic elites. Like many other countries in the MENA region, the Moroccan state has also until relatively recently been in control of traditional broadcasting. A dahir (royal decree) in 1924 when Morocco was still under French rule established broadcasting as a state monopoly. Shortly after, in 1928, Radio Maroc was launched operating under the umbrella of the Moroccan Post and Telecommunications, and in 1962, television appeared in Morocco merging with Radio Maroc into Radio Télévision Marocaine (RTM). The total monopoly over broadcasting media, and partially over written media, was consolidated during the 1970s. The tight state control contrasts with the privately owned print press often with links to political parties, a strategic move in a country with a high percentage of illiteracy‚ but with one television set per household. The state’s monopoly did not end until September 2002 when a decree law liberalized the audio-visual sector creating the Haute Autorité de la Communication Audiovisuelle (HACA). The HACA would become the regulatory authority responsible for granting broadcasting permits and ensuring legal obligations were respected. The new law on broadcasting communication was enacted in 2005. However, new radio and television licences were not granted until May 2006. In a practical sense, liberalization has not been a clear-cut case of broadcasting independence as one might expect. There was no call for nominations before granting the new licences, the specifications and procedures for licence allocation remained unknown to the public, and the news of the new licences was made public in a press release revealed by the state’s official news agency Maghreb Arab Press (Hidass 2010: 31–32). Therefore, in spite of the liberalization, broadcasting networks have continued to maintain an editorial line close to the stateowned media. Even before these changes, the national radio station Médi1 was 49% French owned, presenting a rather curious case difficult to categorize in a dominated landscape. Médi1, now Médi1 TV, has its headquarters and studios in Tangiers, which is situated in the north of the country far from the cultural and media centres of Rabat and Casablanca. Since 1980 and until the liberalization of the market, Médi1 functioned with an unknown legal status broadcasting its programmes both in Arabic and in French. The French ownership did not however influence Médi1 broadcasting as its editorial line remained congruent with the rest of the state-owned radio and television stations.

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Moreover, the high costs of setting up a new broadcasting agency, together with the low economic benefits and the de facto tight control by the HACA, discourages investors who do not already accumulate the necessary social capital. In an attempt to respond to criticism on lack of funding, in 2014, the Ministry of Culture launched a yearly scheme offering a number of grants for the production and distribution of new music. This initiative seemed to address an important economic hurdle for independent new musicians, particularly those with low incomes or from rural areas. The process of applying for this funding, however, has turned these schemes into yet another way of supporting already economically successful artists with the necessary social capital and improving the image of the ministry. As is the case in other cultural fields, particularly cinema, fulfilling the conditions of the grant is nearly impossible for independent artists, that is, artists not signed to a music label. Among other documents, the ministry asks for applicants to submit the following: copies of contracts of everyone in the project (at least 70% of them must have an artist card); a copy of the BMDA (Bureau Marocain du Droit d’Auteur) card, that is, of the Moroccan Copyright Office, or any other foreign copyright office a detailed report on professional distribution for independent artists or a copy of the contract of distribution for signed artists; proof that the applicant has been practising in the artistic field for at least two years; and proof of professional tax payment for individuals.1 Even if this chapter cannot be devoted to explaining in detail why it is impossible for young new artists to meet these requirements, I will provide here a brief overview. The most obvious obstacles in this list are getting the artist and the BMDA cards. In order for the Ministry of Culture to issue an artist card, it requires musicians to have a BMDA membership card.2 This BMDA card is only issued if the artist has proof of radio broadcasting or a contract with a music label. Therefore, anyone without a contract with a record label or interest and grant from a radio station is unable to access these funds. Registering with the BMDA is in itself a time-consuming and energy-draining endeavour, as we will witness later. Moreover, providing a document that ensures proof of music distribution is extremely complicated for independent artists. Even if these artists plan to distribute their music online there is no document that can guarantee the future distribution of an album. Last but not least, establishing yourself as self-employed in Morocco requires money to formally set things up. These requirements are therefore not able to be met by groups with low

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or no income who are not signed with a label. Due to the fact that the labels are based within the Rabat–Casablanca axis, artists from rural areas are also a priori marginalized in this funding scheme. These requirements are clearly aimed at musicians with a career in the field and not for newcomers who might be more in need of funding. However, fulfilling these requirements is difficult also for known artists who have remained in the field ‘informally’, not signed to a label, releasing their music through their YouTube channel, been absent from radio broadcast, and so forth. Burying artists in a complicated bureaucratic system or impossible requirements, as was the case with the liberalization of the broadcasting systems, is an effective strategy to control and dramatically reduce the number of demands for funding. The publicity received for this funding is designed to curb criticisms of the Ministry of Culture, for its lack of investment in music, and of the elites, for not allocating funds from the country’s budget to support artists independently. The fact that the process involved in allocating these funds clearly favours known artists and cultural managers rather than supporting newcomers, however, has triggered complaints from the press and the cultural milieu. The artist who has benefited most from this state scheme is rapper Don Bigg. Despite already having his own professionally equipped recording studio, in 2016 Don Bigg received 640,000 dirhams (£51,000). (The other two artists who greatly benefited from this funding were the pop singer Issam Kamal and the internationally known singer Oum.) This was not the first time Don Bigg had been awarded money from the Ministry of Culture in the four years since the launch of the scheme. In 2014, he was granted 600,000 dirhams (£48,500) to produce and distribute music including creating an artistic residency.3 Since 2014, however, the rapper has only produced an album called Talet (Third, 2015) available on his YouTube channel4 which does not seem to justify the large amount spent on an already successful artist. His other endeavours to benefit from these funds have remained discreet. Criticisms for what was considered an excessive amount in governmental aid to a single rapper appeared in local newspapers and magazines.5 An article published in TelQuel with the title “Les subventions qui fâchent” (“Grants that annoy”, June 3, 2014)6 argued that while the initiative of granting funds to musical and other projects was well received by the cultural scene, the distribution of the funds was perceived as unfair. In a cartoon referencing the discontent with Don Bigg’s funding, the rapper is depicted with a large bag of money while a man dressed in a traditional

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djellaba and a bendir asks another man representing the state why Bigg got more money than he did. Furthermore, criticisms from the cultural milieu claimed that the process lacked transparency and that the ministry had not given artists enough time to prepare the applications resulting in a reduced number of requests. Through this programme, the state made obvious its interest in continuing its politics of funding known artists and organizations while limiting and hindering the opportunities for new young artists.

Producing and Distributing a Rap Album Privately owned spaces for music production are under a similar control to the spaces for music dissemination and consumption. There are a number of private music labels in Morocco responsible for the ‘formal’ music industry. Much of this formal industry is devoted to traditional popular Moroccan music such as Andalusi, Malhun, Amazigh music genres, pop music, cha’abi (popular music) and raï. In contrast to other countries in the Global South such as South Africa, well-established national or international record labels rarely produce and distribute genres such as rap or heavy metal. Therefore, with a few exceptions, the majority of Moroccan rap music is produced informally, that is, recorded at home studios, mixed and mastered with illegal copies of the necessary software, and distributed online or through illegal channels. In order to launch their careers, some rappers have created their own independent label through which to release an album. This was the case of Don Bigg, founder of DBF Productions, and also Mobydick, who is behind Adghal Records. Muslim has also produced most of his albums independently, with the exception of his 2009 album Al Tamarroud produced and distributed by the company Moroccan Talent Agency, not a music label per se. The economic costs involved in releasing an album independently are monumental. Besides the time and dedication required to write lyrics for the album, plus the composing or buying of new beats, artists must hire a studio and pay a recording sound engineer, manufacture CDs and then find a space to sell the album or organize pop-up sale spots in music shops. In principle, rappers require fewer studio hours than other genres as they only need to record the voice without instruments. However, not having a band means that the economic burden is borne by only one person. Once the album is recorded, artists face another important challenge in the form of manufacturing and distributing the

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CD. In Morocco, for a company to produce CDs, they require a number that record labels get from the Moroccan Copyright Office (BMDA). Without this number, the only option is for musicians to manually produce their own CDs. Albums without this number, however, cannot be sold by ‘formal’ music shops such as Virgin Records or FNAC as they are considered illegal copies. While selling in these multinationals may seem unimportant, being able to sell your music alongside that of renowned international rappers and other musicians is of significance for many young new rappers. It bestows the local artists with symbolic capital, empowering in Moroccan youth a feeling that everyone has a chance to share a space with these global stars. Under these circumstances, networks of solidarity between rappers are invaluable for bypassing the regulations that complicate music production and distribution for independent artists. During 2013, I followed rapper Dizzy DROS during the production and distribution of his first album. This rapper from Casablanca had become known when in November 2011 he released his first single, “Cazafonia”, on YouTube. The song was also played on Hit Radio, the largest music radio station in Morocco, helping to disseminate the rapper’s music to a larger audience. The rapper recorded his first album, called 3azzy 3ando Stylo (Black with Style, 2013), during the first half of 2013 in a home studio in the working-class neighbourhood of Derb Soultan in Casablanca. The album was then mixed in a professional studio in Casablanca, and mastered in a studio in London. Once the process of recording, mixing and mastering was over, the rapper started to look for ways to produce and distribute the CDs. He first contacted Nabil Jebbari, a music producer at AMD, a music label established in Casablanca that was working with other contemporary musicians such as famous pop singer Saad Lamjarred on his album Wala 3alik (2013). DROS had previously met Jebbari on a TV show on Medi1 TV, where Jebbari had shown interest in distributing his album. However, once the album was ready, Jebbari would not answer his calls. Without a label, the rapper visited one of the rare factories that at the time produced CDs in Casablanca. At this warehouse, we found out that in order to independently manufacture the album, Dizzy DROS required a BMDA number only given to labels or artists who had already released two other albums. In other words, the BMDA would only provide you with a number to legally produce CDs once you had signed with a label or released two previous albums. Dizzy DROS satisfied neither of these, in common with many other new rappers. Finally,

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thanks to the help of Mobydick who had established his own record label precisely to overcome these obstacles, Dizzy DROS was able to get a BMDA number. However, the complications did not end there. The factory we had visited was in the process of closing down its activities and DROS found himself with no one to manufacture his CDs locally. He then decided to contact a smaller company, who would end up producing the CDs. Finding these companies is not easy as they do not work with independent artists, and many artists turn to their networks outside Morocco to contact CD producers. Manufacturing CDs outside Morocco involves another set of problems, including paying the cost of taxes and of the transportation of a large number of CDs, and most importantly, having the possibility of sending the required money from Morocco to a foreign currency. In Morocco, bank accounts and credit cards are not available to everyone. According to the World Bank in 2014 only 28% of adults used a bank account, and only 10% from low income brackets.7 This same report claims that the high cost of opening and maintaining a bank account is the main reason for 24% of those without one to continue unbanked. Moreover, in order to make an international payment you need a special bankcard or the relevant authority’s signature to issue a cheque. Also it is strictly forbidden by law to import or export the dirham as it is a closed currency. By late November 2013 the production of the CD was complete and it was ready for official release and distribution. Despite obtaining the BMDA number and thus having ‘formal’ copies, the distribution of the album remained ‘informal’ for economic reasons. We visited the two main record shops in Morocco, Virgin Megastore headquarters and FNAC, to ask about the procedure for selling the album in their stores in Casablanca and Rabat. The stores were only willing to give the rapper 12 dirhams (£0.95) for each copy, while the production cost had been 9.5 dirhams (£0.76) per CD. It must be stated that these stores sell international artists’ albums at a much higher price starting from 200 dirhams (£16). Furthermore, both stores required the rapper to produce invoices in order for them to buy his product, invoices he could not produce as he did not own an official company. The lack of fair profit, essential to cover the costs of production, and the difficulties in producing an invoice led Dizzy DROS to abandon the idea of selling his album in stores. The rapper decided to upload the complete album on YouTube8 and used TuneCore to distribute it in online stores such as iTunes and Amazon

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and streaming apps such as Spotify.9 In order to market the album, the rapper released a video on his YouTube channel and shared it on his Facebook page inviting his followers to invest in the album (and not just download it from YouTube) in order to support him in his music career. The online campaign worked and the rapper also started selling the CDs at concerts arranged to mark the album’s release. The first concert took place in Casablanca on November 22, 2013 at the Instituto Cervantes.10 The Spanish cultural centre agreed to provide a space for Dizzy DROS to perform without any cost. Professional speakers and microphones were also provided at no cost by a friend of the rapper. Entry was free and albums were sold at the door. The concert room was packed and that night the rapper sold nearly 400 copies of his album. At the table where friends and family helped with the sales, young men and women bought the album, many acquiring extra copies for friends who lived far from Casablanca. The path of independently producing and distributing an album in Morocco, as is the case for many other countries, is full of potholes. Networks of solidarity are essential in this endeavour, something not granted to everyone, especially those far from the largest cities or new to the music scene. Partly responsible for these difficulties are two related issues: first, the pressure of international copyright treaties such as the TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property) signed in 1994; and second, the lack of local political will to facilitate music production for independent artists.

The Moroccan Copyright Office (BMDA) Until recently, the monopoly of music recording and distribution was in the hands of RTM (Radio et Télévision Marocaine) based in Rabat. A law in 2005 established the monopoly of the BMDA as sole manager of copyrights; that is, the BMDA is the only institution allowed to collect royalties within Morocco and distribute them among its subscribers. The decree 2.64.406 (March 8, 1965) established the creation of the BMDA. According to this decree, the BMDA should be under the supervision of the ministry in charge of information. The decree 1.00.20 (February 15, 2000) implemented the law 2.00 pertaining to copyright. It is at this time that the audio-visual sector in Morocco and the rest of the MENA region started a process of liberalization of the state’s monopoly, with new laws and regulatory bodies such as the HACA (Haute Autorité de la Communication Audiovisuelle) created in 2002. The instability of the BMDA as an institution is manifested by the frequent change in director

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over the past few years. Abdellah Oudghiri was replaced in 2014 by Radi Badreddine and then Badreddine in 2016 by Ismaïl Menkari. Although national media often remains silent about the BMDA, tensions with labour unions were reported in 2014.11 Abdessaid Cherkaoui (2013), an expert on intellectual property law, claims in a book completely dedicated to the BMDA that the office does not have a legal status and that its sources of income and how it distributes royalties among authors remain obscure. The argument put forward by Cherkaoui is that despite the number of laws concerning copyright, authors remain unprotected, as there are no clear regulations on BMDA’s management. Cherkaoui’s affirmations coincide with the experience of Moroccan artists who try to approach the office looking for the revenue from their work. The reality is that only a few artists have received royalties from the BMDA, and from those, many have denounced the small quantity awarded as is the case with Hoba Hoba Spirit or DJ Van. Despite the existence of the BMDA, new artists find it very challenging to receive income from the media that use their music. As the artist Oum declared to TelQuel, “Releasing an album in Morocco is a real proof of cultural activism. It’s almost financial suicide for the artist since it is never profitable” (April 18, 2012). During my fieldwork in Morocco, I visited the BMDA offices in Rabat and Casablanca between 2013 and 2014 with the rapper Dizzy DROS to find out how artists could register their music in order to receive royalties. In Rabat, the person in charge was absent from the office and no one was able to tell us which day we should come back. We went to the office in Casablanca, but the responsible individual was not there. A few days later, Dizzy DROS went back to the office and gave the official the paperwork he had downloaded from their webpage. The official did not recognize the documents and asked him where he had obtained them. He then gave Dizzy DROS other papers to fill in and told him they required attachments so it would be better to take them directly to Rabat. Dizzy DROS went back to Rabat with one of his CDs and the required paperwork. This included his birth certificate, a legalized copy of his ID, his CD with the lyrics printed out, and a certificate from Hit Radio confirming that they had played his songs. However, the person in charge in the Rabat office told him that the song lyrics had to be written by hand (as opposed to printed from a computer) and that they also required the scores. The Rabat BMDA official added that the whole process could take up to two years. This might explain Jeffrey Callen’s (2006: 199) findings that the BMDA has registered only 2000 artists, which includes

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not just musicians but also writers, composers and screenwriters. It is clear that the inefficiency of the BMDA leads to impoverishment of the artists and to devaluation of their artistic production (Callen 2006: 199). According to the president of the producers’ guild in Morocco, Sarim Fassi-Fihri, Morocco has signed international treaties on copyright and there are many laws meant to ensure that authors get their money (The New York Times June 6, 2012). However, he also admits that even though the BMDA has been around for decades, it has not been monitored and there is no way of knowing where the money has gone. As Alami reports in her article, “while some famous artists have been receiving regular royalties, others have received nothing” (The New York Times June 6, 2012). In order to guide young musicians in this aspect of their careers, Boultek organized a series of workshops in November 2012 at which the manager of the renowned Moroccan rock group Houssa, Sarah Hajblum, discussed the situation of copyright in Morocco. Hajblum recommended that as long as the copyright situation in Morocco was not resolved, artists should search for alternatives, such as joining the SACEM (Société des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs de Musique), the French Association for Authors, Composers and Publishers of Music, which unlike the BMDA is a private institution. The president of the cultural association Racines has also commented on the issue, saying he believes Morocco should follow the French example, meaning that the BMDA should not be state-controlled (TelQuel April 30, 2012). An article in TelQuel, published during these workshops in Casablanca, proved my experience with Dizzy DROS was a common one (TelQuel November 1, 2012). The director of the BMDA claimed that a contract had been signed with the Ministry of Communication to re-structure the office between 2009 and 2012. The article reported that despite the 13 million dirhams (£934,654) allotted to the BMDA in 2012 the situation had not changed. In 2012, the director of the BMDA selected Othman Benhami, a member of H-Kayne, to represent artists in a debate about copyright on the 2M TV show “Niqach 2.0”. One might suspect that a member of H-Kayne was selected because of the group’s tendency to remain far from any criticism of the state. The BMDA was therefore able to create an illusion of commitment to the artists’ demands without having to deal with a harsh vocal opposition. However, the experience with DROS anecdotally highlights the fact that the BMDA is understaffed and that there is a lack of coordination between the Rabat and Casablanca offices. Instead of copyrights, and in order to reward musicians for their artistic

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contribution the Makhzen has traditionally and arbitrarily handed out grimmas, that is, licences for buses, taxis and other businesses to assist their chosen artists financially. As to the politics of copyright in Morocco, Sarah Hajblum attests: “Do not be fooled, there is a real political will not to resolve the situation” (TelQuel November 1, 2012). Therefore, the incompetence of the people working at the BMDA offices is a reflection not only of the lack of transparency on the side of the BMDA, but also of the absence of political will to solve this problem. The state strategy of restricting copyright to keep artists vulnerable to political exploitation is not unique to Morocco. Anne Schumann (2013: 448) suggests a similar situation in the case of the Ivorian crisis (2002– 2007) during Gbabo’s regime by exploring the intersection between the rise of patriotic music and the struggle of musicians to gain control of their music. As Schumann (2013: 442) explains, in the Ivory Coast a new generation of political actors found in popular music a tool to promote patriotic feelings in order to fight rebels and France, its former colonizer. Significantly, this study argues that research on African popular culture has downplayed the role of the state and economics in the production and co-option of popular culture. In this respect, Morocco is no exception in the region, as the role of the state as the patron of the arts, together with the lack of political action to maintain artistic freedom, bestow on the Makhzen the power to decide on the artists who are allowed to survive in the cultural field. Therefore, the never-ending copyright problem, coupled with the handing out of grimmas, perpetuates the role of the state and the monarchy as sole distributors of wealth, having a profound effect on Moroccan cultural production.

Copyright, Creative Commons and Piracy Morocco is one of the signatories of the TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property) negotiated in 1994 and regulating copyright laws, inviting states to control and protect intellectual property. Much influenced by the European Union and the United States among other countries, the adoption of this treaty has been more beneficial to those countries which are home to multinational corporations. In this sense, we can argue that copyright and piracy are central to the neoliberal experience (Dent 2012; Hesmondhalgh 2008). While imported laws may intend to protect artists and their work, including granting them with profit from its use by others, David Hesmondhalgh argues that this also

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entails the dissemination of ‘cultural neoliberalism’ (Hesmondhalgh 2008: 102). According to Hesmondhalgh, copyright alongside other cultural property rights are critical in the relationship between culture and imperialism. Signing agreements on intellectual property such as the TRIPS, and abiding by them, aids in the normalization and legitimation of ‘Western’ notions of how culture should be regulated across the globe. However, these laws rarely protect individuals, as copyrights are more often than not owned by big corporations (Hesmondhalgh 2008: 104). This affects not only the cultural field, but alarmingly also the control and ownership of important pharmaceutical patents. In the case of the Moroccan music scene, when artists rarely receive any profit from the BMDA, artistic production is not de facto protected by copyright laws nor do artists benefit from them. The sole beneficiary of enforcing copyright laws is the BMDA and therefore the Moroccan state. The effect of regulating intellectual property has in turn intensified ‘piracy’ as a major problem in the Moroccan music industry, as signalled in a 2004 report on copyright industries in the country (Sekkat and Achy 2004: 195). As has been the case in the rest of Africa and other MENA countries, first cassettes and then CDs have been copied and openly sold in music shops and on the streets without any action from competent authorities. One may find in Cairo or Damascus informal copies of otherwise expensive dictionaries and other books as well as CDs. Anti-piracy organizations in Arabic-speaking countries are not common, contrary to other countries such as Brazil, Ghana and Zimbabwe. Therefore, in Morocco there is no organization or system in charge of dealing with copyright infringement issues. In 2013, however, a committee of artists—which included a significant member of the hip hop community, Khalil Belkas aka DJ Van—was organized in order to deal with piracy. The outcome of this committee was to enforce the inclusion of a BMDA number in the manufacture of all CDs, to try to contain the selling of illegal copies (Cherkaoui 2013: 64). As mentioned earlier, instead of protecting artists, this measure has only granted more control to the dysfunctional Moroccan copyright office, acting as a firewall for new independent artists. Despite the efforts of this committee and other organizations in the Global South, piracy is encouraged by a combination of low incomes and high prices set globally by the largest music labels who do not take into account local economies (Karaganis 2011). Virgin Megastore and the

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French FNAC have opened shops in Rabat and Casablanca in the past five years selling original CDs. The price of local artists’ CDs remains the same as in any other shop in the urban centres, an average of 15 dirhams (£1). The price for foreign artists’ albums, however, is 200 dirhams (£16), an amount imposed by record labels not aware of and indifferent to the difference in income in countries beyond the US and Western Europe. Formal albums of local artists found at these stores are mainly those whose distribution is managed by a label. Rarely can you find independent artists’ albums in these stores, as access is difficult and the process complicated as earlier explained. The difficulties and lack of profit in selling music in these stores, together with the possibility of uploading music online through different platforms (iTunes, but also Bandcamp) and online streaming (YouTube or Spotify), is discouraging artists from attempting to ‘formally’ sell their music. In a context where artists’ work is under the control of corporations, the state, and/or media, piracy can be seen as an act of resistance. Copied CD music albums are not the only informal form in the field of music. There are many home studios spread throughout the country that function with pirated non-official copies of music software such as Cubase (or Pro Tools, although this one is more difficult to crack). This software provides anyone with a DAW (digital audio workstation) with which they are able to create and produce beats, as well as record, edit, mix and master songs. Rappers often own this software and make their own beats, yet there are many other young people who rather than become a rapper prefer to become beatmakers and sell their beats to local and international rappers. These beatmakers, together with home studio owners, are an important support to the rap network which conveniently operates beneath the radar of the Moroccan patrons of the arts. Even if Eckstein and Schwarz (2014: 18) warn us that talking about the notion of piracy engages with Eurocentric imaginaries of theft, freedom and resistance, I argue that regardless of the music produced, these cultural networks are in themselves acts of resistance. Another example of this kind of resistance are groups who challenge copyright laws. Although these laws are rarely enforced—at least at an individual level—in Morocco, there are on-going discussions on alternative models for cultural use, such as Creative Commons (CC). Creative Commons is an alternative form of regulating intellectual property, offering the creator different options around how others may use their work. Open Taqafa (Open Culture in Arabic), an artistic and technological

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experimental platform encouraging free culture and commons, is the group responsible for disseminating the CC community in Morocco. As is the case with many groups and organizations which discuss issues such as culture, start-ups and the digital field, Open Taqafa is established mainly within the Casablanca–Rabat axis and therefore available only to a low percentage of Moroccans. Further, despite the work of Open Taqafa and other networks interested in challenging existing models of culture, copyright laws and alternative models are not well known among artists or the general public. This complicates the mobilizing of groups, associations and Moroccans in general in making a case against a neoliberal and imported understanding of intellectual property. Contrary to the conversations sparked by on-going media campaigns in many European countries and North America revolving around copyright, this is not an important topic in the Moroccan public sphere. Therefore, in spite of the great value that groups such as Open Taqafa provide to the Moroccan cultural field, these initiatives are still marginal.

Strategies for Economic Resistance? Online platforms of music distribution, including streaming, offer artists some mode of income. By posting and selling their work on online platforms such as YouTube, iTunes and Spotify, Moroccan artists gain economic profit through monetization of streaming of their videos or sale of their songs, thus escaping the tight control of the state. Digital platforms provide more than a selling location for artists, however; they also provide a space for rappers to interact and chat with fans and followers, to engage and share news and events, at least with those who have access to the Internet. In addition, they can also blur the line between producer and consumer, professional artists and amateurs. In the era of digital media, this has led to coining of the terms ‘prosumers’ (Ritzer et al. 2012) or prod-users (Bruns 2008: 21). In particular, YouTube has been successful in establishing a user-generated content platform rather than professionally-generated. Some have claimed, however, that YouTube has evolved to perform similarly to a television network rather than a social networking group (van Dijck 2013: 114). While it may not have been since its conception in 2005, nowadays YouTube is a hybrid between broadcasting and home video, what van Dijk calls ‘homecasting’. While YouTube may no longer be the participatory haven or the revolutionary platform that it was once believed to be, in Morocco it is still the

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favourite platform for rappers to release their new songs. This is because of the high number of subscribers compared with other Arabic-speaking countries. While other countries prefer sites such as Soundcloud to share music, Morocco has the second largest number of YouTube subscribers in the MENA region, with 68% of all social media users, behind Lebanon with 75% (Arab Social Media Report 2015: 42). Monetization in social media has been criticized by some commentators as a product of neoliberalism. Nick Couldry argues that “YouTube provides a platform where page views and positive commentary on people’s posting of themselves performing or simply ‘being themselves’ can literally be counted and monetized as part of the process of ‘selfbranding’” (Couldry 2010: 82). Couldry’s argument acknowledges the fact that platforms such as YouTube, but also reality TV, provide a space for normalizing neoliberal democracy’s demands on citizens. The idea is that while YouTube provides a space to build your own brand, in our case a career as a rapper, it is not entirely an empowering process in that the person does not receive recognition but rather a space for exposure without recognition. As everyone can become a producer of a YouTube channel, this exposure does not grant symbolic capital. In-depth research on the role of likes and followers in the MENA region to unravel how social media following translates locally and how it relates to offline and traditional media, including TV and radio, remains to be done. This is especially significant in a country where television has a higher level of penetration than online platforms and, still, greater legitimacy. Regardless of scholars’ debates on online platforms, Moroccan rappers upload their new songs (even when they are released without a music video) on their YouTube channels, where they attract a high number of views. The YouTube channel where rapper Muslim uploads his music has more than 100 million views12 and many of his music videos have well over 10 million views. Don Bigg’s channel has more than 20 million views, Mobydick’s more than 10 million and Dizzy DROS’s more than 30 million.13 These figures translate into a massive number of people—from Morocco and elsewhere—listening to rappers’ music and viewing their videos without the consent of local arts patrons. These platforms allow fans to share their favourite music, new or old, available on state-controlled media or not, and to engage in conversations in the comments section which is normally open to anyone. In addition, rappers are able to monetize their views by allowing advertising on their videos.

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The fact that over the past few years YouTube has initiated actions against violations of intellectual property and copyright laws helps Moroccan rappers to fully monetize the content they upload to their channels. Other music platforms such as iTunes, Amazon and Spotify also allow any independent artist to sell or stream their music through these channels. The problem is that in order for an independent artist to monetize their YouTube channels, or sell and stream their songs on music applications (apps), they need a digital distribution service such as TuneCore. Companies of this sort are in charge of uploading artists’ albums and singles to major music apps in exchange for an annual fee or a percentage of the profit. Again, issues around the Moroccan dirham being a closed currency and the lack of bankcards make this process more difficult, especially to the unemployed and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. To add yet another complication, services like TuneCore work with PayPal accounts which are used to withdraw profit. Even though PayPal is now available in Morocco, you need a bank account and a card to withdraw the money, which brings us back to the complications around opening and paying for a bank account in the first place. A company called Qanawat, with its headquarters in the United Arab Emirates, offers these services to Moroccan artists, collecting their money from the different online platforms and paying them in the local currency. Qanawat has opened an office in Morocco in charge of the signing of contracts with local artists to monetize their work online. While might solve part of the problem, Qanawat keeps 50–60% of the artists’ revenues, significantly reducing the artists’ final profit. Beyond selling music as such, some rappers have also turned to the production and selling of merchandise to gain profit and allow them to continue with their music career. This is the case for Mobydick, Dizzy DROS and Shayfeen, who have designed and sold their own t-shirts, mostly through pop-up shops. They announce selling dates and spots mainly through social media. While this strategy works for rappers who have already accumulated a significant number of followers on different online platforms, as they have already created a ‘self-brand’, this is not viable for new young rappers just starting out. Nevertheless, it is a useful solution for rappers who have gained some level of fame despite being marginalized by state festival programmers and state funding. Merchandise not only allows them to establish their own brand—which fans help to promote by wearing their t-shirts—but also creates a feeling of community. Crowdfunding, as popular in Europe and the US, could be an option

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for these new rappers, but issues with online payment, among others, render this system unviable at least until now in many MENA countries.

The Limits of Digital Media Claiming that digital media is the solution to state control would be a utopian statement. While for now, rappers are able to upload their content online and gain profit from it, the state remains vigilant. Rapper L7a9ed—who became known during the MENA uprisings—was accused and sentenced to jail for one year after a music video posted on YouTube of one of his songs represented the police as donkeys. The original video of this song, “Klab Dawla” (Dogs of the State, 2010), a collaboration with rapper Proof 3askri, has since been deleted14 although another reproducing the image for which L7a9ed was sentenced to prison is still available.15 In the track, L7a9ed and Proof 3askri denounce police abuse, describing how young people in Morocco are affected by police profiling and emphasizing the importance of socio-economic background in these actions. This case was particularly important as it was the first time a rapper had been accused and convicted for music production. It also served to alert rappers that the Web was not a safe haven but on the contrary was being closely monitored by the state security apparatus. In spite of L7a9ed’s case, utopian narratives have long praised the revolutionary character of the Internet and its capacity to bring freedom and equality, especially in the context of the 2010–2011 uprisings (see for example Benmamoun et al. 2012; Breur and Groshek 2014; Breuer et al. 2015; Howard and Hussain 2013a, b; Khamis 2013). Even if these discourses are very much alive in the media, scholars have questioned the oversimplification of associating digital media to democracy (see for example Hindman 2009; Reed 2014). Moreover, media, as the case of L7a9ed proves, can be a tool that majorly benefits power, as Kai Hafez notes: “In the Middle East, and particularly in the Arab world, the reception given to the concept of media power has tended toward the optimistic, focussing on high hopes rather than on fears about the media’s influence on the political arena” (Hafez 2008: 1). Similarly, Walter Armbrust warns about a narrative of newness, claiming that it is simply a repetition of similar narratives with which satellite TV was framed: “Now that al-Jazeera is becoming ‘old’, the new obsession is blogging—like news broadcasting, another genre within a rich medium” (Armbrust 2007: 532). The case of Moroccan rap suggests that YouTube can be useful in disseminating

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the work of rappers who have also been supported by radio stations, TV broadcasting, or cultural institutions and, for some, by performing in festivals. While L7a9ed had posted his songs on YouTube as early as 2010, he became widely known in Morocco only after his arrest (For further discussion on L7a9ed see Moreno-Almeida, 2017). Moreover, arguments that relate social media with empowerment need to address the issue of universal accessibility. The Internet is not the imagined democratic space with equal access for women and men, middle and lower socio-economic classes, urban and rural, and so forth. According to the World Bank, internet penetration in Morocco in 2014 was 56.8%16 while a study published in 2016 increases this to 58% (Inside the hearts and minds of Arab youth: Arab youth survey 2016). The Arab Social Media Report webpage offers more nuanced information on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn by countries, including data on age and gender difference.17 In 2013 the Facebook penetration for Morocco for all ages above 13 and across genders was 16.35%. If we look at the information by gender, the percentage for women’s use of social media reduces dramatically, to only 6.14%, suggesting that only a minority of women use Facebook in Morocco. If we consider only the age group from 15 to 29, it also changes, to 0.39%. Numbers also suggest a low total in younger users. More data on digital inequality in Morocco are needed to shed light on the habits, times and location of Internet access. Quantitative studies also need to consider that the available data based on Facebook profiles does not necessarily reflect real age, gender or hometown, or take into account the fact that one person may have more than one profile. The modest data on online activity are in great contrast with mobile and TV penetration. According to the Arab Media Outlook (2011–2015) report (2012), mobile phone penetration in Morocco was 125%. Other sources point out that the penetration of smartphones in 2015 was only 25%.18 According to the Arab Media Outlook (2011–2015) report the penetration of television is nearly 100%. The larger penetration of television compared with the Internet suggests that even if online platforms are increasing in users, traditional media still has the power to reach a large audience. Moreover, the political significance of television in Morocco is such that it is the preferred medium for the king to deliver speeches to the nation (Hidass 2010: 24). Furthermore, the fact that ‘everyone’ is able to post online, but only those selected make it on radio and television, needs to be taken into consideration when understanding the dynamics between traditional and digital media. Even if a YouTuber is available to ‘everyone’

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online, the great number of competing vloggers and platforms renders it difficult to become known without any other support. In studying the economies of resistance, theoretical considerations must be taken into account together with pragmatic and empirical ones. While my approach in this chapter is empirical and pragmatic, it aims to build theoretical considerations on liberalism with regard to economies in state-controlled cultural fields. In highlighting the role of digital media I do not wish to engage in enthusiastic arguments that equate it to sources of liberation and freedom. Nor am I supporting neoliberal practices by pointing out the benefits of monetization from online platforms. However, my work with Moroccan rappers suggests that monetization of online content assists some of them in defeating the political will that is trying to shut down new artists’ careers. While criticisms of monetization and branding on social media may be linked to neoliberal policies, in countries where culture is tightly controlled by the state, like Morocco, new media can help to overcome the dominance of the main patrons of the arts, in terms of both symbolic and economic capital. The Moroccan state is already working to take control of the Internet. In July 2015 the company Hacking Team, which provides software designed to help governments spy on their citizens, was itself hacked, revealing Morocco as one of its most important clients. Only time will tell the effects of this investment in spyware technology and the impact it will have in the use of digital media. The case of L7a9ed arrested and convicted due to an online music video that he claims he did not create suggests that while online media may be useful for rappers to monetize parts of their music, it is still a state-supervised sphere. While fetishizing digital media is highly problematic, dismissing it completely ignores the important role it has played for both new and established musicians in exhibiting their work. In the absence of physical spaces to perform, it is a first step towards rappers accumulating social and symbolic capital. Yet digital media are hardly ‘new’ in this sense. Before YouTube, rappers would provide their CDs to shops in the cities’ medinas, where the owners would copy them and sell them, much as they did with cassettes before. The digital, however, is capable of breaching national borders faster, creating a bond with the Moroccan diaspora and migrants living far away. Therefore, while arguably there is nothing really ‘new’ about digital media, a nuanced approach to assessing the changing role of digital media in the cultural field is necessary to understand its impact, or lack thereof, in the Moroccan rap scene.

166  C. Moreno Almeida

Notes





1. h ttp://www.minculture.gov.ma/index.php/2016-02-10-12-2502/3854-2017-2 [Accessed February 7, 2017]. 2. h ttp://www.minculture.gov.ma/index.php/ser vices/carte-artiste [Accessed February 7, 2017]. 3. http://fr.le360.ma/culture/don-bigg-decroche-une-subvention-publique15387 [Accessed February 7, 2017]. 4. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyNwLKrDqEUth75hmVt1K SJ4TnBB42pCM [Accessed February 7, 2017]. 5. See articles that appeared in 2014 and 2016 on online news sites and print magazines featuring Don Bigg as the main beneficiary of state funding for music projects: http://fr.le360.ma/culture/don-bigg-decroche-unesubvention-publique-15387;   https://ledesk.ma/encontinu/15619/; http://aujourdhui.ma/culture/musique/le-ministere-de-la-cultureaccorde-640-000-dh-a-don-bigg;   http://www.h24info.ma/maroc/ culture/bigg-rafle-la-plus-grande-part-des-primes-accordes-aux-artistesmarocains/41184; http://m.hespress.com/art-et-culture/297307.html [Accessed February 7, 2017]. 6. h t t p : / / t e l q u e l . m a / 2 0 1 4 / 0 6 / 0 3 / c u l t u r e - l e s - s u b v e n t i o n s fachent_137375 [Accessed February 7, 2017]. 7. h t t p : / / w w w. w o r l d b a n k . o r g / e n / t o p i c / f i n a n c i a l i n c l u s i o n / publication/2014-morocco-financial-inclusion-and-capability-survey [Accessed February 3, 2017]. 8. Listen to the album at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxFx_ ZbwPylSaUff2O9U9hqsFDfSntjlx [Accessed February 3, 2017]. 9. Subsequent sections in this chapter will expand on the intricacies of online modes of distribution. 10.  See videos of this concert at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= UJy0cRirU7A and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdJ6sj0ePxk [Accessed February 3, 2017]. 11. http://www.medias24.com/SOCIETE/14873-Tensions-sociales-auBureau-marocain-des-droits-d-auteur.html [Accessed February 2, 2017]. 12. Data collected on February 6, 2017 from the rapper’s YouTube channels (https://www.youtube.com/user/srifi/about [Accessed February 6, 2017]). 13. Data collected on February 6, 2017 from the rapper’s YouTube channels (https://www.youtube.com/user/DonBiggOfficial/about;   https:// www.youtube.com/user/Mobydickmusic/about; https://www.youtube. com/user/DizzyDROS/about) [Accessed February 6, 2017]. 14. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/17/el-haqedmorocco-hip-hop-revolutionary [Accessed August 26, 2016]; http://

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www.france24.com/fr/20120425-justice-maroc-rappeur-mouad-belghouat-rancune-liberte-expression-mouvement-20-fevrier [Accessed August 26, 2016]. 15. See video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYkw14Q3w28 [Accessed August 26, 2016]. 16. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.P2 [Accessed November 15, 2016]. 17. http://www.arabsocialmediareport.com/Facebook/LineChart.aspx?&Pri MenuID=18&CatID=24&mnu=Cat [Accessed November 15, 2016]. 18.  http://beta.evolita.com/explore/arab-countries-smartphone-penetration-rate-2015/jmypq/ [Accessed November 16, 2016].

References Arab Media Outlook 2011–2015. Exposure and Transition: Forcasts and Analysis of Traditional and Digital Media in the Arab World, 2012. Dubai. Available from http://www.arabmediaforum.ae/userfiles/EnglishAMO.pdf. Arab Social Media Report. 2015. Available from http://www.dmc.ae/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/ArabSocialMediaReport-2015.pdf. Armbrust, W. 2007. Pensée 2: New Media and Old Agendas: The Internet in the Middle East and Middle Eastern Studies. International Journal of Middle East Studies 39 (4): 531–533. Benmamoun, M., M. Kalliny, and R.A. Cropf. 2012. The Arab Spring, MNEs, and Virtual Public Spheres. Multinational Business Review 20 (1): 26–43. Breuer, A., and J. Groshek. 2014. Online Media and Offline Empowerment in Post-Rebellion Tunisia: An Analysis of Internet Use During Democratic Transition. Journal of Information Technology & Politics 11 (1): 25–44. Breuer, A., T. Landman, and D. Farquhar. 2015. Social Media and Protest Mobilization: Evidence from the Tunisian Revolution. Democratization 22 (4): 764–792. Bruns, A. 2008. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage. New York: Peter Lang. Callen, J. 2006. French Fries in the Tagine: Re-imagining Moroccan Popular Music. University of California. Available from http://popculturetransgressions.com/2010/04/17/french-fries-in-the-tagine-moroccan-alternativemusic/. Cherkaoui, A. 2013. Bureau marocain du droit d’auteur: Organisme Hors-la-loi. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. Couldry, N. 2010. Why Voice Matters: Culture and Politics After Neoliberalism. Los Angeles: Sage. Dent, A.S. 2012. Piracy, Circulatory Legitimacy, and Neoliberal Subjectivity in Brazil. Cultural Anthropology 27 (1): 28–49.

168  C. Moreno Almeida Eckstein, L., and A. Schwarz. 2014. Introduction: Towards a Postcolonial Critique of Modern Piracy. In Postcolonial Piracy: Media Distribution and Cultural Production in the Global South, ed. L. Eckstein and A. Schwarz, 1–25. London: Bloomsbury. Hafez, K. 2008. Introduction. In Arab Media: Power and Weakness, ed. K. Hafez, 1–16. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. Hesmondhalgh, D. 2008. Neoliberalism, Imperialism and the Media. In The Media and Social Theory, ed. D. Hesmondhalgh and J. Toynbee, 95–111. Abingdon: Routledge. Hidass, A. 2010. Radio and Television in Morocco: New Regulation and Licensing for Private Channels. Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research 3: 19–36. Hindman, M. 2009. The Myth of Digital Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Howard, P.N., and M.M. Hussain. 2013a. Democracy’s Fourth Wave? Digital Media and the Arab Spring. New York: Oxford University Press. Hussain, M.M., and P.N. Howard. 2013b. What Best Explains Successful Protest Cascades? ICTs and the Fuzzy Causes of the Arab Spring. International Studies Review 15 (1): 48–66. Inside the Hearts and Minds of Arab Youth: Arab Youth Survey. 2016. Available from   http://www.arabyouthsurvey.com/uploads/whitepaper/2016-AYSWhite-Paper-EN_12042016100316.pdf. Karaganis, J. 2011. Media Piracy in Emerging Economies. New York, NY: Social Science Research Council. Khamis, S. 2013. Cyberactivism in the Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions: Potentials, Limitations, Overlaps and Divergences. Journal of African Media Studies 5 (1): 69–86. Massaia, A. 2013. Un désir de culture: Essaie sur l’action culturelle au Maroc. Casablanca: Editions de la Croisée des Chemins. Moreno-Almeida, Cristina. 2017. “‘Reporting on Selective Voices of “Resistance”: Secularism, Class and “Islamist” Rap.’” International Journal of Cultural Studies, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877917694093. Reed, T. 2014. Digitized Lives: Culture, Power and Social Change in the Internet Era. New York: Routledge. Ritzer, G., P. Dean, and N. Jurgenson. 2012. The Coming of Age of the Prosumer. American Behavioral Scientist 56 (4): 379–398. Available from http://abs.sagepub.com/content/56/4/379.abstract. Schumann, A. 2013. Songs of a New Era: Popular Music and Political Expression in the Ivorian Crisis. African Affairs 112 (448): 440–459. Sekkat, K., and L. Achy. 2004. Copyright Industries in Morocco. Performance of Copyright Industries in Selected Arab Countries: Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia. World Intellectual Property Organization. van Dijck, J. 2013. The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Final Remarks

There is no doubt that rap is firmly established as part of popular music and culture in Morocco, opening up a space in which to narrate, negotiate and reimagine a myriad of subjects. Moroccan rap tells stories about national identity, urban spaces, gender and class divides, marginality, the beauty of the landscape, unity and division, spirituality, drugs and alcohol, and friendship, amongst other themes. More than a storytelling genre, rap music in Morocco embodies the systems of power in place to control young people’s narrative as much as the strategies of artists and audiences to challenge and influence the music scene. For this reason, the overwhelming number of accounts that focus on rap as a weapon of resistance miss out on the opportunity to grasp the countless themes and topics that matter to Moroccan youth, and the ways rap bestows them with control or lack thereof. In particular, looking beyond ‘resistance’ is important to deconstruct the dominant images of young Muslim artists as angry and in a constant fight with authority or society, and of rap music in the MENA region and Africa as predominantly a ‘protest’ culture. Granted that rap music in Morocco tackles capital-P Political events, but it also challenges class privilege, highlights the country’s beauty, reconfigures cities and neighbourhoods, and pushes boundaries of preconceived notions of what Moroccan culture is and how it is constructed. Exposing the different narratives in rap music is necessary to move beyond dominant approaches to hip hop culture, which generally polarize youth simplistically into rebellious vs. co-opted, without a deep analysis of the complexity of the field and its politics. Therefore, © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 C. Moreno Almeida, Rap Beyond Resistance, Pop Music, Culture and Identity, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-60183-0

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we need to shed light on the many layers involved in acts of cultural resistance and define the meanings of the term locally, nationally and globally to unravel its many nuances from different perspectives. Reports that categorize rappers as co-opted or resistant are more telling of the commentators’ own biased and limited understanding of rap and cultural engagement than of rap itself. Analysis of the Moroccan rap scene demonstrates that it cannot be classified as either a top-down or a bottom-up process. Moroccan rappers, whether they support or challenge or do not engage at all with dominant social and political discourses, make their cities a space of power. Rappers like Fnaïre, H-Kayne and Don Bigg have capitalized on urban spaces to shape their work and occasionally support the state’s narrative. Some of these groups have been responsible for the birth of patriotic rap, which draws on feelings of attachment to the nation. Expressing love and pride of their nation has helped them ward off accusations of betrayal of Moroccan traditional culture, as well as providing success in the music field, symbolically and economically, following the path of many other Moroccan artists since independence. By supporting these rappers and their music production, the state promotes rap lyrics and music videos that contain no social or political criticism but rather reinforce a romanticized image of the nation. Fnaïre and H-Kayne conjure the nation with words of goodness and kindness, depicting an ideal nation that enemies are trying to destroy. While rappers devoted to patriotic narratives claim to be engaged with national unity, a closer look at Moroccan rap music demystifies this claim by shedding light on profound socio-economic disparities and gender biases that deeply divide the country’s society. These disparities appear particularly in the work of Muslim, Mobydick and many more. Notwithstanding their claim to voice underprivileged malaise, it is not enough to simply make a connection with youth, as underscored by the case of Chaht Man. Rather, Moroccan rappers are required to creatively uncover the emotional bonds that tie them to an eclectic range of people who make up their audiences. For this reason, Moroccan rappers epitomize a much broader and more complex paradigm than simple categories that place them as agents of co-option or resistance. Whether or not rappers achieve this emotional connection, gaining visibility in a country where the state is the main patron of the arts (as is the case in many other countries of the Global South) is not assured. Artists need to think creatively to reach a balance between being loyal

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to their art and gaining enough income to subsist. Key elements in eluding the elites’ control are to build a wide audience, to ‘do it yourself’, and to capitalize on digital media in a strategic way. Building a large audience allows artists to become attractive enough to exert pressure on festival programmers, despite the initial reluctance of the country’s elites to support any ‘alternative’ narratives. Creating a clothing brand, for example, may also help to promote a rapper’s craft and appeal to new audiences. These strategies can be a double-edged weapon, however, as they can endanger artists’ creative independence in the face of the lure of economic gain and national media attention. ‘Do it yourself’, or rather, weaving a network of solidarity, will provide artists with the tools to create with little economic risk. This may be challenging for some artists in rural areas with little access to the larger artistic networks and free studios found in big cities. Moreover, these networks must be sustained and continued. Well-known artists have often been accused of failing to support younger generations by charging for studio sessions at their home studios or not reinvesting their symbolic and economic capital. Finally, digital media allow artists to disseminate their work and recoup some of the economic investment. Monetizing their music online is not trouble-free, however. Access to online payment methods and bank accounts is available to just a few. Online spectatorship is also limited by the level of Internet penetration, the reproduction online of offline inequalities that are yet to be overcome globally. However, when urban spaces are in the control of a privileged few, digital media, and most significantly private traditional media, play an important role in a rapper’s career. Accumulating an online audience can be a first step towards offline recognition in other media outlets such as radio and television shows, magazines and newspapers. The fact that there is a tradition of inviting rappers on a regular basis to appear on television programmes aimed at young people, such as “Ajial” and “Niqach 2.0”, and also others on current political and social issues such as “Moubashara Ma’akum” (Live with You), indicates that rappers already have a space in broadcasting networks. Rappers also appear regularly in the print press, largely privately owned, both in French and in Arabic. French-language magazine TelQuel frequently carries interviews with rappers as well as comments on their work, as also do Arabic-language newspapers like Akhbar Alyaoum. However, all of these tend to feature artists within the same networks, which are largely based in urban areas. Rappers from rural areas far from the Casablanca–Rabat axis who are not

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immersed in these cultural networks have more difficulty in accessing these media outlets. Rappers from smaller towns, from rural areas or who sing in any of the Amazigh languages are rarely featured in national traditional media. These artists can find ways to upload their music and sell it online if they can negotiate the economic complications this entails. Therefore, while digital media may act as an entry gate, a continuous and holistic media presence is possible for only a few. The intricacies of digital culture need to be looked at closely to avoid simplistic utopian, pessimistic or technological deterministic narratives on the role of digital platforms. Arguments that associate digital media with neoliberalism or that debunk initial thoughts that the Web 2.0 would bring real equality in which everyone is represented also need to be acknowledged. With all the different implications and difficulties that being a new artist entails, it is no wonder that the Moroccan music industry remains exclusive and hard to access for artists who want to make a living from their music—and especially for rappers, who are imagined to be among the most critical. In this sense, rappers are not blind to the politics of the Moroccan cultural field, including political power struggles within the nation, the processes and strategies of co-option, and pressures of Eurocentric music markets that have engaged in exotic portrayals of Moroccan artists. Based on the complex debates addressed in this book, it is clear that Moroccan rappers are required to constantly negotiate their position within the music scene in order to survive as artists. Some more than others can choose to perpetuate, ignore, resist, or condemn powerful and dominant narratives, and shape the field according to each artist’s own individual agenda. Finally, considering equally the multiple manifestations of power and resistance as well as other themes, the complex dynamics of culture and cultural production allows for new epistemologies that hopefully will set the tone for future studies on nonWestern youth music and culture.

Appendix

List of Interviews Interview with Younes Belghazi, Rabat, March 18, 2013 Interview with Hatim Bensalha, Meknes, July 2, 2011 Interview with Dizzy DROS, Casablanca, February 15, 2012 Interview with Dizzy DROS, Casablanca, February 18, 2013 Interview with DJ Afro, Rabat, November 25, 2011 Interview with Salah Malouli, Barcelona, December 8, 2011 Interview with Masta Flow, Casablanca, November 2, 2011 Interview with Mobydick, Salé, July 5, 2013 Interview with Muslim, Tangiers, June 26, 2013 Interview with Philo, Casablanca, May 8, 2013 Interview with Rabie Graffiti, Rabat, February 28, 2012 Interview with Shayfeen (Shobee and Small X), Casablanca, April 15, 2013 Songs Azed, Ahmed Soultan & Don Bigg, 2007, “Bladi” Babel & Rwapa Crew, 2012, “Feels So Right” Barry, 2014, “Sahra Dialna” Bizzmakers, 2013, “B.M.W.” Casa Crew, 2004, “Men Zan9a LZan9a” Casa System, 2010, “L’feeling Dayz” © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 C. Moreno Almeida, Rap Beyond Resistance, Pop Music, Culture and Identity, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-60183-0

173

174  Appendix

Chaht Man, 2012, “00h Casablanca” Chaht Man, 2010, “Attawri”, on Attawri, Casablanca, Independent Chaht Man, 2012, “F.Y.” Chaht Man, 2012, “Dima Classic” Chaht Man, 2012, “Mizi Drahem Ikhourjou Lik Ikwari” Chaht Man feat. Tee Sediki, 2012, “CCTV” Dizzy DROS, 2011, “Cazafonia” Dizzy DROS, 2012, “Men Hna” Dizzy DROS, 2012, “Msa7a Fia” Dizzy DROS, 2013, “3alam”, on 3azzy 3ando Stylo, Casablanca, Independent Dizzy DROS, 2013, “Malkom”, on 3azzy 3ando Stylo, Casablanca, Independent Dizzy DROS feat. Shayfeen, 2013, “L’Benj”, on 3azzy 3ando Stylo, Casablanca, Independent DJ King Sams feat. Junior Reid, Salah Edin, Nessbeal & Don Bigg, 2010, “One Life” Don Bigg, 2006, “Al Khouf”, on Mgharba Tal Mout, Casablanca, DBF Productions Don Bigg, 2006, “Bladi Blad”, on Mgharba Tal Mout, Casablanca, DBF Productions Don Bigg, 2006, “Mgharba Tal Mout”, on Mgharba Tal Mout, Casablanca, DBF Productions Don Bigg, 2006, “Skizo Fri3”, on Mgharba Tal Mout, Casablanca, DBF Productions Don Bigg feat. Fnaïre, 2006, “Family”, on Mgharba Tal Mout, Casablanca, DBF Productions Don Bigg, Khansa Batma & H-Kayne, 2007, “Sma3ni” Don Bigg, 2009, “Bouliss”, on Byad Ou K7al, Casablanca, DBF Productions Don Bigg, 2009, “Casanegra”, on Byad Ou K7al, Casablanca, DBF Productions Don Bigg, 2009, “Ifri9ia”, on Byad Ou K7al, Casablanca, DBF Productions Don Bigg, 2011, “Mabghitch” Don Bigg, 2012, “Fhamtini Oula La” Fnaïre, 2004, “Matkich Bladi” Fnaïre, 2007, “Tajine Loughat”, on Yed El Henna, Marrakech, Independent

Appendix

  175

Fnaïre, 2007, “Yed El Henna”, on Yed El Henna, Marrakech, Independent Fnaïre, 2008, “Attarikh” Fnaïre, 2011, “Hamra w 7adra” El General, 2010, “Rais Lebled” Hamid VFF, 2013, “Familla” Hatim H-Kayne feat. Sif Lssane H-Kayne & Ridfabouleux, 2011, “A la Marocaine” H-Kayne, 2006, “Bladi”, on H-K 1426, Meknes, Platinum Music H-Kayne, 2006, “Issawa Style”, on H-K 1426, Meknes, Platinum Music H-Kayne, 2006, “Kima Dima” on H-K 1426, Meknes, Platinum Music H-Kayne, 2009, “La Briguade”, on HKaynology, Meknes, Red Square Music Llc/H-Kayne Productions H-Kayne feat. De Borrelnootjez, 2013, “Panthera Leo Leo” H-Kayne, 2014, “Safi, Tfe Dow” Hoba Hoba Spirit, 2003, “Basta Lehya”, on Hoba Hoba Spirit, Casablanca, Independent Hoba Hoba Spirit, 2013, “Grimma Awards”, on KalaKhniKov, Casablanca, Hayha Music Division JilJilala, 1976, “Laayoune Aynia” Koman, 2011, “Casa lil” Koman feat. Philo, 2011, “Cha3b Yourid Lhayat Foug Fgig” L7a9ed feat. Proof 3askari, 2010, “Klab Dawla” Masta & Caprice, 2012, “7di Mennou” Mobydick, 2009, “7izb L3am Zine”, on LMoutchou Family, Rabat, Adghal Records Mobydick, 2011, “Checkmate”, on Dars Khass Ba3da L’Album, Rabat, Adghal Records Mobydick, 2011, “Lmoutchoukisthan” Muslim, 2005, “Znaqi Tanja”, on Strictly for My Souljaz, Tangiers, Independent Muslim, 2006, “Yemma”, on Bghini wella Krahni, Tangiers Muslim, 2008, “Mour Sour”, on Mour Sour, Tangiers, Independent Muslim, 2009, “7ob lWatan”, on Al Tamarroud, Tangiers, Moroccan Talent Agency Muslim, 2009, “Aka Moutamarred”, on Al Tamarroud, Tangiers, Moroccan Talent Agency

176  Appendix

Muslim, 2009, “Machi Ana Likhtart”, on Al Tamarroud, Tangiers, Moroccan Talent Agency Muslim, 2009, “Tanja for Life”, on Al Tamarroud, Tangiers, Moroccan Talent Agency Muslim feat. Chaht Man, 2010, “Fine 7a9na” Muslim, 2011, “Dounia Fania” Muslim, 2011, “Law Kan Lwa9i3 Law7a” Muslim, 2014, “Ntouma Ghir Kathadro”, on Al-Rissala, Tangiers, Independent Nass El Ghiwane, (n.d.), “Lbtana” Othman H-Kayne feat. M-Snoop, 2011, “Maghreb 1 Machi 2” Yassine FCC feat. Cho-B (Shayfeen), 2010, “Marock” Albums Casa Crew, 2007, Albassma, Casablanca, Independent Dizzy DROS, 2013, 3azzy 3ando Stylo, Casablanca, Independent Don Bigg, 2006, Mgharba Tal Mout, Casablanca, DBF Productions D5on Bigg, 2009, Byad Ou K7al, Casablanca, DBF Productions Don Bigg, 2015, Talet, Casablanca, DBF Productions Double A, 1996, M3ak Dima M3ak, Independent Double A, 1996, Wakie, Salé, Independent Fnaïre, 2007, Yed El Henna, Marrakech, Independent H-Kayne, 2006, H-K 1426, Meknes, Independent H-Kayne, 2009, HKaynology, Meknes, Red Square Music Llc/HKayne Productions Mobydick, 2009, LMoutchou Family, Rabat, Adghal Records Mobydick, 2011, Dars Khass Ba3da L’Album, Rabat, Adghal Records Muslim & L3arbe (Zan9a Flow), 2001, Tanjawa Daba, Tangiers, Independent Muslim, 2005, Strictly for My Souljaz, Tangiers, Independent Muslim, 2006, Bghini wella Krahni, Tangiers, Independent Muslim, 2008, Mour Sour, Tangiers, Independent Muslim, 2009, Al Tamarroud, Tangiers, Moroccan Talent Agency Muslim, 2014, Al-Rissala, Tangiers, Independent Saad Lamjarred, 2013, Wala 3alik, Casablanca, AMD

Index

A Abu Lughod, Lila, 7, 52 Aesthetics, 12, 13, 33, 90, 106 Aita, 32 Al Khattabi, Abdelkrim, 54, 55, 101, 102, 107 Alternance, 24 Amazigh, 21. See also Tamazigh culture, 24 language, 172 musical tradition, 31 ‘amir al mu’minin, 31, 53, 54, 55. See also Commander of the faithful 3amzinism, 97 Andalusi music, 32 Arabic Latinized, 15 Modern Standard, 15 Arab Spring, 25. See also Uprisings Authenticity, 13, 99, 108, 109, 125 Authoritarian rule, 3, 24, 25, 43, 115 B Baker, Geoffrey, 8, 84, 99 Baraka, 53, 55, 85

Ben Ali, Zine El Abidine, 3, 51 Bishop, Claire, 11 Boultek, 38, 132, 147, 156 Boutchichia, 31 Bureau Marocain du Droit d’Auteur (BMDA), 149, 152–158 C Casablanca, 10, 16, 21, 23, 26–28, 30, 31, 33–38, 60, 61, 69, 73, 75, 87, 89, 91, 100, 104, 113, 118–120, 122–126, 129, 131, 132, 134, 135, 137, 139, 146, 148, 150, 152–156, 159, 160 Casa Crew, 34, 41, 43, 70, 100, 126, 130 Casanayda, 40, 41, 43 Chaht Man, 16, 84, 100–107, 109, 130 Civil society liberal secular, 7, 8 secular, 8, 30, 31, 42, 43, 60 Clean art, 8 Commander of the faithful, 30, 53. See also ‘Amir al mu’minin

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 C. Moreno Almeida, Rap Beyond Resistance, Pop Music, Culture and Identity, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-60183-0

177

178  Index Consumption, 16, 27, 83, 93, 104, 145, 151 Co-option, 4, 13, 16, 51, 61, 69, 107, 119, 120, 125, 157 Cultural patrons, 31. See also Patronage Culture popular, 1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 25, 32–34, 39, 52, 58, 59, 61, 69, 89, 106, 124, 132, 137, 151, 157, 162 urban, 4, 12, 16, 21, 23, 26, 27, 29, 34, 36, 44, 54, 58–60, 77, 88, 100, 104, 108, 109, 113–115, 119, 122, 123, 125, 128, 129, 134–136, 140, 141, 146, 164 youth, 1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 15, 16, 21, 26–29, 33–35, 37, 39, 40, 42, 43, 52, 60, 67, 71–74, 77, 83, 84, 87, 90, 93, 99–101, 104, 108, 109, 113, 114, 119, 120, 122, 125, 129–132, 135–137, 139–141, 146, 152 D Daadaoui, Mohamed, 8, 22, 53–56, 60, 85 Darija, 10, 14–16, 33, 39, 40, 65, 97, 100, 108, 119, 128, 129, 138 Democratization, 22, 24, 30, 83, 84 Digital media, 39, 160, 163–165. See also Social media Dizzy DROS, 16, 96, 99, 102, 126, 130, 135, 136, 141, 145, 152–156, 161, 162 DJ Key, 34, 119 Don Bigg, 2, 10, 16, 34, 40, 41, 43, 70, 74, 75, 89, 91, 95, 98, 104, 106, 108, 109, 119–127, 129, 130, 132, 137, 138, 141, 150, 161

Double A, 34 E EAC-L’Boulevart, 36, 38, 130, 147. See also L’Boulevard des Jeunes Musiciens; Boultek Egypt, 1, 2, 32, 71, 90, 115 El Basri, 102, 104 El Bidaoui, Bouchaib, 32 El Fassi Fihri, 96, 102 El General, 3, 51 Elites, 4, 21, 22, 26, 32, 37, 42, 44, 54, 58, 59, 77, 96, 106, 107, 117, 145, 148, 150 Entelis, John, 55, 57, 59, 60 Equity and Reconciliation Commission(IER), 24, 74 Exceptionalism, 25, 30, 31, 42, 74. See also Moroccan exception F February 20 Movement (F20), 25, 120 Festival de Casablanca, 34–36, 89, 116, 147 Festival d’Essaouira, 36, 62, 63 Fez Festival of World Sacred Music, 36, 62, 118 Fnaïre, 16, 33, 34, 60–65, 68–70, 77, 84–87, 89, 94, 95, 97, 99, 120 French Language, 77, 90, 120 Rule, 23, 31, 53, 54, 58–60, 101, 148 G Gilroy, Paul, 8, 94, 106 Global market, 16 Gnawa, 33

Index

  179

Green March, 57, 69, 71, 86 Grimmas, 98, 157

Justice and Charity group (al ‘Adl wa al Ihasān), 61

H Hall, Stuart, 11 Hassan II, 23, 24, 29, 36, 55–57, 101, 102, 114, 116, 123–126 Hay Mohammadi, 33, 34, 122, 123, 129 Heavy metal, 22, 28, 35, 39, 40, 60, 147, 151 Hegemony, 27 Hiba (fear), 97 Hidden transcripts, 4 High Authority for Audiovisual Communication (HACA), 148, 149, 154 Hip hop, 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 14, 35, 38–40, 43, 52, 60, 89, 91, 100, 106, 108, 119, 130, 135–137, 158 Hit Radio, 35, 36, 68, 152, 155 H-Kayne, 10, 16, 34, 40, 41, 69, 70, 75–77, 84, 87–89, 91, 92, 94, 95, 97–99, 120, 127, 130, 132, 156 Hoba Hoba Spirit, 33, 93, 94, 98, 120 Hogra (contempt), 103, 106

L L7a9ed, 10, 11, 15, 67, 163–165 L’Batwar, 114, 129–132, 134, 147 L’Boulevard des Jeunes Musiciens, 94, 100, 146, 147 Lead Years, 21, 29 Liberalisation, 23, 24, 35, 36, 148, 150, 154

I Imperialism, 4, 34, 52, 60, 137, 158 Islam, 8, 28–31, 33, 38, 59–61, 63, 74, 75 Islamist, 7, 8, 16, 24, 27–31, 61, 63, 71, 74, 75 Istiqlal Party, 28, 54, 55, 102 J James Scott, 4

M Maghreb, 33, 69–72, 74, 88, 106, 148 Makhzen, 22, 23, 25–27, 29, 31, 36, 42, 43, 54, 60, 65, 69, 70, 72, 74, 87, 96–99, 114–116, 118, 120, 121, 125, 132, 134, 146–148, 157 Malhun, 32, 151 Marrakech, 23, 33, 34, 61, 65, 68, 113, 127–129, 134 Mawazine, 35, 36, 62, 86, 89, 90, 116–118, 127, 129, 147 Middle East, 1, 5, 9, 22, 30, 51, 64, 74, 85, 163 Middle East and North Africa (MENA), 22 Mobydick, 16, 41, 83, 93, 95, 98, 99, 102, 104, 106, 130, 145, 151, 153, 161, 162 Mohammed VI, 21, 23–25, 27, 29, 30, 34, 36, 37, 39, 44, 69, 71, 72, 74, 85, 87, 99, 101, 102 Monarchy, 7, 8, 21–27, 29–31, 33, 35–37, 43, 44, 53–61, 83, 102, 103, 107, 113, 115, 116, 118, 146, 147, 157 Monetization, 160, 161, 165

180  Index Moroccan Exception, 29, 73, 74. See also Exceptionalism Moudawwana, 24, 74 Music Festivals, 16, 21, 31, 35–37, 41, 62, 63, 78, 88, 95, 113–115, 121, 147 Muslim consensus, 31, 54, 59, 60 rapper, 1–4, 6, 8–10, 70, 74, 83, 89, 96, 109, 118, 119, 145 N Nass El Ghiwane, 33, 34, 70, 71, 120, 123, 124 National Development Initiative (INDH), 21, 25 National identity, 13, 51, 52, 58, 59, 75, 85 Nationalist movement, 32, 55–59, 77, 94 Nayda, 39–43, 100, 101, 115 Neoliberal, 23, 26, 44, 84, 99, 113, 115, 119, 138–141, 146, 157, 160, 161, 165 North Africa, 1, 5, 9, 22, 51, 64, 73 O Omnium Nord Africaine (ONA), 23, 117. See also SNI Osumare, Halifu, 5, 6, 10 P Palestine, 13, 32, 51, 93, 134 Party of Justice and Development (PJD), 8, 61 Patriotic discourse, 4, 8, 9, 11, 22, 78, 94, 95, 97, 103 rap, 1–4, 8, 16, 21, 44, 51

songs, 52. See also Ughniya wataniya Patriotism, 3, 56, 57, 68–70, 72, 73, 78, 87, 89, 90, 93–95 Patronage, 23, 31, 32, 35, 38, 116, 145, 146. See also Cultural patrons Polisario, 56, 69, 71, 72, 77 Popular culture, 1, 4, 6, 32, 33, 38, 52, 89, 157 demonstrations, 2, 67, 72, 74, 132 music, 5, 31–34, 157 songs, 122 Power dynamics, 16, 113 iconography of, 64 rituals of, 52, 53, 55–57 systems of, 7, 9, 14 R Rabat, 23, 35, 36, 38, 95, 113, 116, 118, 132, 148, 154, 155, 159 Rap audience, 100, 109 conscious, 9, 99 fans, 13, 61 function, 38 local, 10, 100, 122 non-Western, 84, 135 scene, 16, 17, 21, 34, 35, 94, 119 taqlidi, 33, 60, 84 tool, 12, 100, 108, 109, 157, 163 Rebel, 10, 42, 67, 106, 140, 157 RedOne, 127, 128 Resistance acts of, 6, 7, 9, 14, 52, 145, 159 commodifying, 83, 93 cultural, 122 dynamics, 4 romanticize, 43 Rif, 54, 55, 102

Index

Rolling Stones, 33 Rose, Tricia, 5, 8, 109 Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture (IRCAM), 24 Rwapa Crew, 16, 86, 127 S Sahara, 56. See also Southern Provinces; Western Sahara Salafism, 27, 30 Sharafa, 53–56 Shayfeen, 16, 104, 145, 162 Slaoui, Houcine, 32 Social media, 16. See also Digital Media Société Nationale d’Investissement (SNI), 16, 23, 118, 134. See also ONA Southern Provinces, 56. See also Sahara; Western Sahara Spanish, 14, 16, 22, 27, 42, 54, 56, 94, 154 Sufi, 31, 33, 38 T Tamazigh, 14. See also Amazigh Tanfi— tanaffus, 114

  181

Tangiers, 34, 113, 135, 140 Tanmiyya (development), 86 TelQuel, 14, 28, 35, 39, 41, 43, 72, 73, 93, 116, 120, 147, 156 Terrorist attacks, 16, 21, 29, 30, 61, 67, 69 Thug Gang, 34, 130 Tunisia, 1, 3, 71 U Ughniya wataniya, 32. See also Patriotic songs Umm Kulthum, 2, 32 Uprisings, 2, 3, 25, 51, 103, 147 Urban spaces, 4, 113, 114, 141 W Watanounism, 93, 94 Western Sahara, 57. See also Southern Provinces; Sahara Wissam maliki (Royal medal), 89 Z Zan9a Flow, 15, 34