College of Trance: Aziz Sahmaoui and the University of Gnawa with "Salabati"

Today's random song is by Aziz Sahmaoui and the University of Gnawa. A Moroccan multi-instrumentalist and singer of gnawa, ancient African Islamic spiritual and religious songs and rhythms, Sahmaoui takes gnawa music and stays true to its essence while also bringing in influences of jazz and fusion. After school, Sahmaoui settled in France where he helped found the world music group The National Orchestra of Barbès where he introduced audiences to music of the Maghreb. In 2010, he started his current group The University of Gnawa, which aims for, in their website's words, a music that ferments trance in a reconciliation of the musical geniuses of both Africa and the Sahara. You can find this song, Salabati, on Aziz Sahmaoui and the University of Gnawa's eponymous 2012 album.

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.

Source: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aziz_Sahmaoui; http://www.azizsahmaoui.com/

Back to School: Aziz Sahmaoui and University of Gnawa with "Salabati"

Aziz Sahmaoui and University of Gnawa bring us the tunes today. Sahmaoui is a Moroccan born singer and multi-instrumentalist in the Gnawa tradition. Born in Marrakech, he was steeped in the traditional musics of the many different tribes of Morocco. After studying literature, he moved to France where he became a founding member of the group World and the Orchestre National de Barbès which fused Maghreb rhythms with jazz. In 2010, he began performing with his new band, University of Gnawa. This song, Salabati, can be found on the 2012 album Aziz Sahmaoui and the University of Gnawa.

Forgetting: Malika Zarra and "Amnesia"

In this song, Moroccan/French singer Malika Zarra sings about a type of amnesia, one in which you forget what you are.  In this context, it's a cultural and ethnic amnesia.  It is an amnesia when people try to play in to the dominant culture, and perhaps feel accepted when they are really aren't.  "Who the hell do you think you are?" is always just below the surface.  That treatment, especially over generations, wears one down so that in the end, even though they tried to assimilate, they find that their children are playing the djembe (a native African instrument), as Zarra eloquently sings.

To me the lyrics seem to be a damning indictment of cultural assimilation, though I'm not so certain that assimilation can't happen.  The United States has been a place where some groups, Italians and Germans for example, have assimilated even though they faced initial resistance and discrimination.  However, they were white.  Ethnic minorities have had a more difficult time, and assimilation into the dominant culture as sometimes been shaky at best partly because American culture has been notoriously unwelcoming to non-whites - slavery, discrimination, and segregation have been the impediments to those groups who may have wanted nothing more than to assimilate.  And of course, no group wants to completely leave their cultural heritage behind, yet to non-whites, Americans have almost demanded it.  The dominant culture thinks it's quaint to be Irish American or German American and hold onto those old world traditions.  The dominant culture often thinks that non-white traditions are alien, suspicious and perhaps even a bit dangerous despite the fact that we often borrow the cuisines, the festivals and other aspects of the cultures.  In this case, it is impossible to completely amnesiac - if the dominant culture doesn't completely trust you, you seek comfort in what you know.

Just musings brought on from this song, Amnesia. Malika Zarra was born in Morocco and moved to Paris when she was young. She studied clarinet in school, but it was the similarity of the core of improvisation present in both Arabic traditional music and jazz that brought her to jazz music. She studied in jazz conservatories in Tours and Marseilles and began to appear at Paris jazz venues, drawing attention to herself by singing jazz standards in Arabic translation. In 2010 she moved to the New York City area. Her music is influenced by traditional Berber music, Gnawa music, Chaabi, French pop, jazz, house, funk, dance and traditional African music as well as individual artists including Farid al-Atrash, Umm Kulthum, Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, and Thelonious Monk. She has released two albums. Amnesia is from her 2011 album Berber Taxi.