Sound Mediterranean: Music from the Maghreb and the Middle East: ‘Nayda, the Moroccan movement’

The usual and almost topical consideration of music as a universal language - capable of bringing people together and crossing borders - has become, in our globalised era of mass consumption, a reality that does not respond to the spirit of this premise, but rather the opposite: styles are blurred, homogenised, and the result is a product that replaces artistic forms with more history, and relegates them to a residual sphere. 

In our Mediterranean context, an area that has become a space with its own very recognisable identity, music has also been a significant element capable of transmitting part of the historical legacy, while at the same time adapting to the aforementioned globalisation (as demonstrated by Algerian raï in the 90s of the 20th century, or flamenco a few years earlier) and renewing itself, maintaining tradition and sometimes taking it to the contemporary. However, it has also suffered from the onslaught of commodification and has lost its share - of audience, of influence, of relevance. 

' Mediterranean Sound: Music from the Maghreb and the Middle East' is born with the aim of focusing on these musics (especially those from the southern shore of the Mediterranean and more specifically, in a first phase, on the Arabic) with the intention of returning them to a more pre-eminent place, and thereby encouraging closer contact with the culture in which they are produced, so that our public -beyond specialists or musicians- has an access door. 

The first of what will be a series of illustrated lectures will take place on Thursday 21 November, starting at 19.00, at the headquarters of the Three Cultures Foundation. In it, José Carlos Cabrera will analyse and give examples of the so-called ‘Moroccan movement’, the Nayda musical movement. 

Emerging in the early 2000s, this social and cultural phenomenon is characterised by the use of new musical genres, especially rap and to a lesser extent rock, performed in Dariŷa, the Moroccan dialectal Arabic. Nayda (which can be translated as ‘awakening’) is related to the occupation of public spaces by young artists, through festivals and concerts, as a form of expression and vindication. Artists such as Don Bigg or Muslim (who combine rap with traditional Moroccan rhythms and social themes), Darga (fusion) or Hoba Hoba Spirit (rock) are the most representative of this trend. 

José Carlos Cabrera Medina is an Arabist and director of the intercultural radio magazine ‘Ruta Mediterránea’, which is broadcast on Radio Andalucía Información. 

Free admission with prior registration at THIS LINK.