Living in a “construction site” city: Tangier

Audio 48:30

A view of the city of Tangier in Morocco.

(Illustrative photo) Public domain

By: Emmanuelle Bastide

54 mins

This week, 7 Billion Neighbors takes you in their suitcases to explore cities around the world.

Town planning, society, transport, leisure: from Kigali to Tokyo via Medellin, RFI correspondents and our guests present the daily life of our neighbors. 

Publicity

With :

Maud Ninauve

, journalist, correspondent for TV5Monde in Tangier, Morocco. 

Musical programming:

Aadabni dak zine

, by Abdelhak Laaroussi

It is a typical song of the sounds of the North which begins with the recurring phrases at parties and weddings (summer is the wedding season in Morocco!) And which sings about the beauty of women and of the region. 

Frontera Nada

, by TiiwTiiw feat.

Morad

The singer

TiiwTiiw

and the rapper

Morad

evoke on this title, released in 2021, the illegal migration of “haragas” (these migrants who attempt to cross the Mediterranean), an inseparable subject of youth in Tangier.

This song is also the mixture of languages ​​(here, Spanish and Darija, Moroccan dialect Arabic) essential in Tangier where you can mix four in the same sentence (French, Spanish, English, French )!

Discover their

clip

, highly cinematographic!

Blood on Blood

, by Lazywall

LazyWall

is a famous Moroccan rock band born in Tangier.

In this song from 2012, we hear the sound of the brilliant

GuitarOud

, a 2 in 1 instrument for western and eastern rock sounds, played by Youssef, the band's guitarist.

"Lazy Wall", translation "the wall of the lazy", refers to one of the mythical places of the city, in the center, near the French consulate, the Café de Paris, along the "Boul'vard" (the road that crosses Tangier from East to West) where you come to laze around ... with a view of the port and the Mediterranean.

Tanjah

, by Randy Weston

A piece from 1973 which recalls the great era of the mythical Tangier, when the great figures of Moroccan and British rock flock to Morocco and especially to Tangier (The Rolling Stones, Patti Smith).

The city made its reputation with the birth, here, of the

Beat Generation

in the 1950s (a word used for the first time by Jack Kerouac in 1948 when he wrote in Tangier surrounded by Allen Ginsberg or Williams Burroughs). 

Randy Weston

, American jazz composer and pianist, was a great lover of Tangier, he played a lot there in fusion with Gnaoua music that he helped to make it known across the Atlantic.

An icon that disappeared in 2018 which also symbolizes jazz in this city where a festival was born 20 years ago, the

TanJazz

At the Aiz Trankille

, from Rock-But

Moroccan rock by the Casablanca group

Rock-But

, a title released in 2015. Moroccan youth are ultra-creative, very attentive to other cultures and they master fusion.

A generation obviously very influenced by social networks: they have the advantage of being an exceptional medium in cultural and democratic development;

with the disadvantages of mass media.

This song advocates discernment, mocking the fashion effects of influencers to keep only the best;

from Morocco and the rest of the world.

Temperance… at ease and quiet.

This is also Tangier, a cosmopolitan city par excellence. 

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