Track of the day: ‘El Gamra’ by Bab L’ Bluz

The upbeat, darija-sung ‘El Gamra’ praises the Moon and her restorative powers, inviting all to party under a night sky charged by trancing guembri and rocking chaabi, by ecstatic harmonies and handclaps that come fast then faster still.

The music is matched by the psychedelic abandon of the new video, directed by Alden Volney, who also directed the video for their single ‘Ila Mata’. It’s a primary-colour parallel-world that is visceral, immediate and mesmeric, and entices you to step inside and let go!

“Gnawa music is healing music,” says frontwoman Yousra Mansour, “You know this the moment you hear it.”

Nayda! features four musicians devoted to ideas of unity, to a revolution in attitude, to shaking up the status quo. Values that dovetail with Morocco’s ‘nayda’ youth movement — a new wave of Moroccan artists and musicians taking their cues from local heritage, singing words of freedom in the Moroccan-Arabic dialect of darija (‘nayda’ means both ‘to rise up’ and ‘to party’) and mixing influences as and when.

Last week Nayda! was announced as the winner of the Fusion category at the Songlines Music Awards 2021. In their five-star review of the album Songlines called the album ‘fearlessly rebellious music.’