Listen, Read, Watch: Morocco
During our much-needed winter break, we published a series of curated #ListenReadWatch over on our Instagram. Every post offered one album to listen to, a book to read, and a film to watch from somewhere in the Arab world. We envisioned this series as a way to celebrate some of the best creative minds from across the region and times.
Listen: Nayda! Bab L’Bluz
Created in Marrakech in 2018, Bab L' Bluz was born from the dream of propelling Guembri (the Gnawa's Guitar) on theinternational music scene of contemporary music.
Read: Conditional Citizens
“Pulitzer Prize Finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to U.S. citizen, using it as a starting point for her exploration of the rights, liberties, and protections that are traditionally associated with American citizenship. Tapping into history, politics, and literature, she elucidates how accidents of birth–such as national origin, race, or gender–that once determined the boundaries of Americanness still cast their shadows today. Throughout the book, she poignantly illustrates how white supremacy survives through adaptation and legislation, with the result that a caste system is maintained, keeping the modern equivalent of white male landowners at the top of the social hierarchy. Conditional citizens, she argues, are all the people whom America embraces with one arm, and pushes away with the other.” (via Laila Lalami)
Watch: The Mother of All Lies
“Filmmaker Asmae El Moudir takes an unorthodox approach for her reconstruction of a painful period in the history of her homeland Morocco, and of her own family. Her father has built a miniature replica of the house and neighborhood where she grew up. El Moudir situates family members and neighbors in this set, where they recount what happened during and after the Casablanca bread riots of 1981, which the government brutally crushed.” (via IDFA)
