Moroccan Chaabi

Morocco · 1940s

Dancing Happy Sentimental Romantic Sad

Your level

0/5

🏆

Listen to this genre to level up

Description

Moroccan chaabi is Morocco’s modern popular music, a lively, community-centered style that blends Andalusi melodic heritage, sung poetry (malhun), rural aita vocal traditions, Amazigh rhythmic sensibilities, and Gnawa grooves. It is the soundtrack of weddings and street celebrations, prized for its danceable pulse, catchy refrains, and call-and-response singing.

Typically led by violin (kamanja) and oud with a strong hand-percussion core (bendir, taarija, darbuka), chaabi arrangements ride buoyant 6/8 and 2/4 feels. Lyrics move between romance, satire, and social commentary, delivered with ornamented vocals and spontaneous audience interaction.

History

How to make a track in this genre

Main artists

Influenced by

Aita

Aita is a traditional Moroccan sung-poetry genre whose name means "the cry" or "the call" in Moroccan Arabic (Darija). It emerged in the rural Atlantic plains (Doukkala, Abda, Chaouia, Haouz) as an expressive, often improvised form performed by ensembles led by cheikhates (female singer-dancers) and chioukhs (male masters). Musically, aita features melismatic vocal lines, call-and-response refrains, and driving dance rhythms. Core instruments include the upright-played violin (kamanja), oud or luth, and robust percussion such as bendir and tbel, with handclaps reinforcing the groove. Its poetry draws on oral storytelling, zajal-like vernacular verse, satire, and love and social commentary. Aita has both celebratory and plaintive facets: it can be a festive call to dance at weddings and moussems, or a vehicle for collective memory and protest. Over the 20th century it migrated to cities (notably Casablanca), shaping—and being reshaped by—urban chaabi while retaining its rural roots.

Andalusian Classical

Andalusian classical (also called Andalusi music, al-âla in Morocco, gharnati in western Algeria, and malouf in Tunisia) is a suite-based Arab-Islamic art music that crystallized in medieval Al-Andalus and was later preserved and elaborated in the Maghreb. It is organized into long, multi-movement suites known as nūbas (nawba), each tied to a modal family (ṭabʿ) and a set of rhythmic cycles (mīzān). The repertoire is built on strophic poetic forms such as the muwashshaḥ and zajal, set to finely ornamented, heterophonic textures. Core instruments include the ʿūd (lute), kamanja/violin (often held upright in Maghrebi practice), rebāb, qānūn, and ney, supported by frame drums (ṭār, bendir), goblet drum (darbuga), and riqq. Melodic practice uses maqām-like modal systems with microtonal intonation, rich melodic turns, and measured as well as non-metric improvisation (e.g., istikhbār). Over centuries, urban scholarly lineages in Fez, Tlemcen, Algiers, Constantine, Tetouan, and Tunis codified distinct schools, preserving nūba cycles, modes, and performance conventions that continue to define the genre today.

Gnawa

Gnawa is a spiritual, trance-based music of Morocco associated with the Gnawa brotherhoods, a community with roots in sub‑Saharan Africa and Sufi Islam. It centers on a deep, percussive bass lute called the guembri (also known as sintir or hajhuj), the bright metallic clatter of iron castanets (qraqeb/krakebs), unison handclaps, and call‑and‑response vocals. Performances often unfold in an all‑night ritual called a lila (derdeba), where cyclical 6/8 grooves and repetitive chants invite communal participation and induce a trance state. The repertoire invokes saints and ancestral spirits (mluk), moving through color-coded suites and intensifying rhythmic layers. While firmly rooted in West African rhythmic sensibilities, Gnawa also absorbs Maghrebi and Sufi aesthetics, producing a sound that is both devotional and intensely groove‑driven.

Malhun

Malhun (also spelled Melhoun) is a form of Moroccan sung poetry rooted in urban craft-guild culture and performed in Moroccan Arabic (Darija). At its core are long, strophic qasidas with a single end rhyme, vivid metaphors, and a refrain (harba) that punctuates the narrative. Musically, malhun is modal (drawing on Maghrebi/Andalusian tab‘/maqam sensibilities) and typically rendered by a solo vocalist with a small ensemble. Common instruments include oud (ud), kamanja (violin played vertically), rebab, nay, and frame and goblet drums such as bendir, taarija, and darbuka. The texture is heterophonic, ornamented, and commonly set in lilting 6/8 or measured 2/4 cycles. Themes range from love and urban life to Sufi devotion and moral reflection, making malhun both a literary and musical art.

Ahwash

Ahwash (also spelled Ahouach/Ahwach) is a communal Amazigh (Berber) song-and-dance tradition from southern Morocco, especially the Tachelhit-speaking High Atlas and Souss–Massa regions. It brings together large mixed-gender ensembles who perform antiphonal singing, poetry, and synchronized dance accompanied by handclaps and deep frame drums. Performances typically form two facing rows or a broad circle, creating powerful call-and-response textures between groups of men and women. The music emphasizes unison chant, tight rhythmic interlocking on bendir/tbel frame drums, and cyclical refrains, often supporting improvised or semi-improvised poetic lines (amarg). Ahwash is central to village festivals (moussems), weddings, and communal celebrations, reinforcing social bonds and collective identity through shared rhythm, movement, and verse.

Has influenced

No genres found