Morocco Savvy

Dakhla is the new destination of choice for the hip and happening crowds - and celebrating its new status with a festival of its own.

Surfing, kite-surfing, paragliding, quad-biking and rough-sea fishing. Dakhla is quickly becoming the real men’s paradise, where talk is about hitching your way into Mauritania rather than finding the most lavish palace restaurant.

Marrakech is for tourists, Dakhla is for travelers. But beware, French daily Le Figaro this weekend put the town on its list of cool destinations. The door to package holidays could be opened soon.

Apart from enough wind to get your kite going, Dakhla has one major unique selling point. It is one of the few places on earth where the desert almost literally touches the ocean.

The small town was a bit of an unknown entity to most people, except UN peace keepers and Moroccans who travel from all over the country to work here during the fishing season. But lately, more and more foreigners are finding their way to Dakhla.

Thanks to the early years of aviation, the town even has an airport. But its business fell last year,  with only 24.459 passengers passing through its tiny terminal (most of them UN officials, we guess). The new tourists - erm, sorry - travelers will probably opt for the much more adventurous 26-hour bus ride from Marrakech.

Dakhla’s authorities are determined to get more visitors. So next weekend, the town is celebrating its first Desert & Sea Festival. There’s the usual menu of folklore and gnaoua music, mixed with kite-surfing (of course), funboarding, martial arts demonstrations and even a film festival.

Among the artists that will be performing are the Gypsy Kings and American jazz pianist Randy Weston. Recent Motorola Music Awards winners Hoba Hoba Spirit, H Kayne and Darga are also appearing.

The festival’s website will stream the entire festival, allowing us to watch the event online. Which fits perfectly with the new, cool Dakhla. 

• Help the Dakhla tourist board with a new slogan that fits its hip status - post your suggestions

Around 33,000 Moroccan prisoners have been pardoned to celebrate the birth of a princess, the second child of King Mohamed VI.

Almost 9,000 prisoners will be released and some 24,000 will have their sentences reduced, the Ministry of Justice said on Friday. Among those are more than 400 foreigners, of whom 278 will be released.

News agency Reuters claims it’s “the largest number of prisoners ever involved in a royal pardon”, and most of the media around the world are copying this little detail. Even the BBC mentions the royal pardon’s “record numbers”.

Well, if you do a quick Google, you can prove them both wrong.

An archived copy of Maroc Hebdo International (PDF file) from May 2003 shows that the birth of the crown prince, Moulay Hassan, was celebrated with the release of 9,500 prisoners and the reduction of prison terms for over 38,000 others. All in all 15,000 more pardons than this time around.

The birth of Princess Lalla Khadija was announced on Wednesday. Moroccan newspapers published the first picture of the king’s second child today, like L’Opinion.

It is a tradition for the Moroccan king to pardon prisoners to mark islamic holidays and royal celebrations. 

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.

Moroccans are going to the polls on September 7, a government minister has told state television.

The statement by the minister of the Interior came after a cabinet meeting on Thursday.

The government had wanted an early election on July 6, but ran into opposition from parliament.

The current parliamentary session does not end until October. Several members of the Chamber of Representatives had questioned the constitutionality of having an election for a new parliament months before the current one ends its work.

The July election could have meant that two groups of elected representatives would have co-existed for over three months. Some parliamentarians argued that this could have led to confusion and disputes over the “old” chamber’s legitimacy.

Some had accused the government of trying to rush through the elections to prevent the islamist party PJD from gaining even more support until September. Unofficial polls suggest that the PJD, the Party for Justice and Development, could already take as much as 50 percent of the vote.

This year’s Alizés Festival will host the world premiere of a new work by French jazz violinist Didier Lockwood.

The renowned French composer’s new work, a choral piece in Arabic, Latin and Hebrew, was composed especially for the festival. It will be performed at Bab El Menzah, a new open air location for the festival at one of the entry gates to the medina. 

The as yet unnamed work will be performed by Essaouira’s resident Choir of Three Cultures, who sing works from Jewish, Christian and Islamic backgrounds.

Didier Lockwood will also perform Le Jazz et le Diva with his wife, Caroline Casadesus. Last year, this work won a prestigious Molière theater award in France for best musical performance. 

The Alizés Festival, officially known as the Printemps Musical des Alizés (”Musical Spring of the Tradewinds”), brings together opera, chamber music and jazz. The festival takes place this year between April 19 and 22.

Sax legend Manu Dibango and Robin McKelle, the new “leading lady of jazz”, headline this year’s Tangier Jazz Festival.

For one week in May, jazz has filled the streets of Tangier since 2000. The Tangier Jazz Festival now stands as one of the highlights in the global jazz calendar.

This year, the festival offers a great mix between veterans and new faces. There’s legendary saxophone player Manu Dibango, plus Robin McKelle, already considered by some “the new leading lady of jazz” since she took the scene by storm with her debut album Introducing.

Another highlight is Moroccan fusion band Gnawa Storm, whose “heavy gnawa” takes as much inspiration from traditional gnawa music as from Jimi Hendrix. Brazilian “atomic fanfare” Upercut, meanwhile, guarantees a party in the streets of Tangier.

The most surprising names in the line-up are four finalists from Moroccan TV’s version of American Idol. The winner of the 2005 edition of Studio 2M, Joudia, will give a free concert in Place Massira el Khadra, as will last year’s three winners, Imane Rabya, Hasna Zalarh and Morocco’s new heartthrob Yassine Badrate.

Tanjazz takes place from May 16 to 21 at locations around Tangier. Apart from the daily free concerts, tickets cost between 100 and 300 dirham, while the festival pass costs 500 dirham.

Royal Air Maroc, Air France and ferry company Comarit offer special festival packages that include transport from various European cities, accommodation and festival pass.

• Check out the festival’s website for details (in French)