4. Mohamed RouichaMa Nagai Ana-jay
I love Moroccan music. I’m big into Gnawa stuff and Joujouka and got into Moroccan music through a compilation called Gnawa Home Songs. I went to Morocco every four years in the early noughties and was buying cassettes. I flew into Marrakesh and visited Essaouira and the west coast and the old hippy trail – more like the surfer trail now, although it’s still there – lots of good hash and incredible cassettes.
So I was buying these tapes and I hadn’t heard of Mohammed Rouicha but because he looks a lot like my step father I thought I’m going to buy this tape on account of that (laughs). So I brought it back to my little Riad and had my fucking mind blown by his playing and his voice. I distinctly remember being sucked in by his lotar playing- and the drone and the percussion. But then it folds into the female vocals, and the call and response and it’s one of the most uplifting and scariest things I’ve ever heard. It’s just unbelievably heavy and after I heard it I became obsessed with him and bought every tape I could find. He was actually a massive star in Morocco, he was a big folk singer – a big deal in Morocco; really well loved – and what he was doing was his take on a very, very old traditional folk tradition. It goes so deep, the first time I heard North African music it made all of the hairs stand up on the back of my neck in the same way as walking into a big Sunday trad session in a pub in Ireland as a very young kid. It’s the exact same feeling, what it does to me – a good Irish trad session or Gnawa or the Berber stuff, it’s actually quite uncanny.
