Morocco Savvy

Rap star Bigg and fusion band Darga are the undisputed winners of Morocco’s first ever Rap & Fusion Music Awards.

The Motorola Rap and Fusion Music Awards were presented last Friday at Casablanca’s Megarama.

Bigg (aka Al Khasser) took home the MRF Awards for Best Rap Song and Best Rap Album. His 2006 release Mghrba Tal Mout (”Moroccan until death”) won the 23-year-old much acclaim, as well as a lot of criticism.

Daring and provocative, the album’s lyrics (in the Moroccan-Arabic dialect, darija) touch on sensitive issues like unemployment, prostitution, press freedom and Morocco’s dark years of political prisoners, disappearances and other human rights violations.

In his award-winning song Al Khouf (”Fear”), Bigg questions why Moroccans are always afraid: of their father, their teachers, the police, the rich, the powerful, and so on. The track is an appeal to young Moroccans to replace fear with respect - for themselves, and for their own rights.

The award for best rap band was won by H Kayne from Meknes, who have just released their new album HK 1426. The “best revelation” award in the rap category was won by G-Nerap, also from Meknes, for their song Bougez (”Move”). The two members of the band, both under 20 years old, have regularly performed as opening act for H Kayne.

In the fusion categories, Casablanca-based group Darga won Best Album and Best Song. Their music mixes Moroccan traditional styles like gnaoua with influences from rock, jazz, funk and reggae.

The 10-member band was formed in 2001, and released a first album in 2004. Their second album, Casa Casa, won them Best Fusion Album, while the title track won Best Fusion Song.

The veteran fusion act Hoba Hoba Spirit took home the Best Fusion Band award, while Caravane picked up the Best Revelation Award for their song Ayou. Caravane, a group of six guys from Mohammedia, also won last year’s Fusion Award at the Boulevard Festival in Casablanca.

To re-cap, here are the full results again:

• Rap, Best Band: H Kayne
• Rap, Best Song: Bigg for Al Khouf
• Rap, Best Album: Bigg for Mghrba Tal Mout
• Rap, Best Revelation: G-Nerap for Bougez
• Fusion, Best Band: Hoba Hoba Spirit
• Fusion, Best Song: Darga for Casa Casa
• Fusion, Best Album: Darga for Casa Casa
• Fusion, Best Revelation: Caravane for Ayou

The Motorola awards forced another event, the Mghrib Music Awards, to reschedule their ceremony. Originally planned for this weekend, the organizers of the Mghrib Awards chose to avoid confusion between the two and moved their event to March 31.

Eden’com, the PR agency behind the Motorola awards, said that the unfortunate timing of their event was not intentional. “The Megarama had no other dates available,” a spokesman for the agency told Moroccan weekly TelQuel at a recent press conference.

There’s no love lost between the two music awards’ organizers. The organizers of the Mghribs (co-sponsored by HitRadio) accuse the organizers of the MRF’s (co-sponsored by another radio station, CasaFM) of “stealing their concept”.

At any rate, the Moroccan music scene seems to be the real winner from the exposure of the squabbling awards ceremonies.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 25th, 2007 at 7:37 pm and is filed under Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.