Moroccan popular music in Arabic, Darija, and Tamazight has been deeply marked by the Palestinian issue. Despite the existence of an exclusive official musical style that portrays official Moroccan music as essentially Arab-Andalusian, all the different regions of Morocco have their own musical traditions that range from al-‘ayṭa to rwāys and al-gadra. Unlike the Andalusian music played on the national television and the Royal Air Maroc planes, which continues to exclude music in Tamazight, these regional musical styles are representative of the vitality of Moroccan society. They are a strong and diverse sonic realm in which real societal concerns are expressed and conveyed to the public. Therefore, this regional and multilingual music is the locus where Palestine’s significance for Moroccan people can be assessed. Anyone who wants to find out how a certain generation of Moroccans constructed their vision of Palestine should listen to the music of that time in Darija and Tamazight. They are the sonic sources of a deep-seated pro-Palestinian consciousness. They are named Izenzaren (Sun Rays), Lamshāhb (Shooting Stars), Jīl Jilāla (Jilala Generation), Nāss al-Ghiwāne (The Insightful People), Masnawa (reference to the Oulad Masnawa, origin of the Batma family) and Larsād (Prospectors; formerly al-‘ushshāq (the Lovers)). Their history and musical records are too numerous to even list here, but their legacy and impact on Moroccan popular music has been unequalled. Izenzaren’s song “ⵚⴰⵀⵉⵓⵏ” (Zionism) was one of the biggest hits of Amazigh music ever composed. Lamshāhb’s “Falasṭīn” gave the band an unparalleled success among urban elites because of its direct and accusatory tones. Jīl Jilāla’s song “al-Quds” starts with this powerful sentence “Oh Creator! Every Arab in your earth has been anxious,” generalizing the state of anxiety and preoccupation with Palestine from Morocco to everywhere where Arabic is spoken. Their other song “ya ‘arabī, yā mslm” depicts the state of powerlessness of the Arab and Muslim community as the occupation of Palestine continues. Larsād pioneered singing in classical Arabic (fusḥa) to reach an audience outside Morocco in 1979. Jerusalem and other Arab world issues occupied a central place in their songs. The songs of these bands form a national repertoire that, one time or another, every Moroccan has listened to and interacted with, in one capacity or another.
Since music in Tamazgha and the Middle East is also a thermometer of societal engagement, Moroccan popular music has reflected societal shifts that have occurred in Morocco. As football gained importance, sports fans have used the athletic field to display their transgenerational solidarity with Palestine. On March 30, 2019, the ultras of Casablanca’s Raja football club released a song titled “rajāwī filisṭīnī” (“Palestinian Rajawi”). Besides the Wydad Athletic Club, the Raja Club Athletic is the oldest Moroccan football club formed during the colonial period. The club a fan base of hundreds of thousands if not millions throughout the country. The song quickly became a global sensation, performed by fans in stadiums across the Arab world and beyond. Its release coincided with the Palestinian commemoration of yawm al-arḍ (Land Day), marking the events of March 30, 1976, when six unarmed Palestinians were killed, and many others were injured after Israeli authorities confiscated 2,000 hectares of land from Palestinian citizens of Israel in the Galilee. “Palestinian Rajawi” continues a tradition of artistic protest dating back to the post-1967 Naksa or setback, which refers to the defeat of the Arab armies during the Six-Day war in June 1967. This tradition emerged largely from working-class neighborhoods such as al-Hay al-Muhammadī in Casablanca, El Kasbah and Sidi Youssef Ben Ali in Marrakesh, and Dcheira and Aït Melloul in the region of Agadir. The rebellious and revolutionary mood of the 1970s was conductive to the use of music for struggle against both political authoritarianism at home and occupation, particularly as it was manifested in the “Judaization” of Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem.
Al-Hay al-Muhammadī, a shantytown formerly known as karyān central, contributed significantly to the evolution of protest music, which became a powerful vehicle for social and political expression in Morocco. Driven by epidemics, famine, and droughts, migrants from rural areas such as ‘Abda, Doukkāla, Rhamna, Chiadma, and southern communities from the region of Souss settled in makeshift homes made of tin and wood. In this complex tribal and ethnic environment, musical traditions from different regions were showcased daily in public squares throughout the slum, starting as early as the late 1950s. With the rise of the independence movement, al-Hay al-Muhammadī became not only a symbol of Morocco’s urban development but also a center for resistance, culture, and musical interaction. These shantytowns became hubs of political conscientization and working-class consciousness, where trade unions and political parties during the colonial period operated to achieve the country’s independence. The histories of exclusion, marginalization, and political repression, with the neighborhood being the locus of one of the most notorious police stations in the country during the “years of lead,” created a spirit of solidarity and resistance that transcended the borders of the country.
Nāss al-Ghiwāne was born in these circumstances and became the trailblazer for the other bands of popular sha‘bī music, which Jīl Jilāla and Lamshāhb later developed. Similarly, the influence of Nāss al-Ghiwāne’s musical style reached Tabghaynust (The Beetle) and Titār (The Dagger Sheath), and Izenzaren (Sun Rays), which developed a new Amazigh popular song style in the Souss. They used Ghiwani musical styles to voice the concerns of ordinary Moroccans about local economic and political issues, becoming some of the country’s most celebrated protest bands. Other groups, such as Nouas, Lerfaag, Asdae, and Bnat El Ghiwāne, emerged from similar popular neighborhoods in El Kasbah and Sidi Youssef ben Ali in Marrakesh. The common denomination between all the areas in which these groups emerged was urbanization and poverty in a difficult post-colonial situation. Palestine allowed them to channel their frustration with their living conditions and direct criticism to the occupying power outside the borders of Morocco. Their songs became mottos for student activism and rallying cries for a revolution that would not materialize. Palestine was present as a primary concern and a tool for internal decolonization in the post-colonial period.
Between 1967 and 1984, over 20 songs on Morocco’s Palestine were produced, performed at public festivals, broadcast on national TV, or distributed on cassettes. Notable examples include the following songs:
1. Al-Filali, Abdelkrim, filisṭīnī
2. Al-Filali, Abdelkrim, ibrāhīm
3. Al-Filali, Abdelkrim, jār sidna musa ben amran
4. Al-Filali, Abdelkrim, sidna yusuf
5. Al-Filali, Abdelkrim, saddam wa ghazw al-iraq
6. Al-Filali, Abdelkrim, sidna ayub
7. Al-firqa al-sh‘biya, al-quds
8. Al-jawda, awraq khrifak
9. Alwan, ‘an insān
10. Asda’, yāk ma
11. Bnat El Ghiwāne, ktar al-khawf
12. Essiham, fin al-haqīqa
13. Essiham, al-quds
14. Essiham, al-qawmiya al-‘arabiya ayna hiya.
15. Izenzaren, as-sahyūn
16. Jīl Jilāla, yā ‘arbi ya muslim
17. Jīl Jilāla, al-quds
18. Lerfaag, filisṭīn (Palestine)
19. Lamshāhb, filisṭīn
20. Larsād, antī lanā
21. Larsād, hadīth al-hijāra
22. Larsād, qudsī
23. Larsād, kafr qāsim
24. Masnawa, falasṭīn (al-Quds)
25. Mlak, wā ḥasratāh
26. Mlouk Lahwa, as-sahyūn
27. Nāss al-Ghiwāne, yā quds
28. Nāss al-Ghiwāne, intifāda
29. Nāss al-Ghiwāne, filisṭīn (Palestine)
30. Nāss al-Ghiwāne, sabra u shātila
31. Nāss al-Ghiwāne, mzīne mdihak
32. Nāss al-Ghiwāne, yā sāhi
33. Nāss al-Ghiwāne, ghir hhūdūnī
34. Nouas, al-quds
35. Abderrahim Boumaaza, Gaza.
36. Al Imbrātūr, For Palisting (For Palestine)
37. Raja ultras, rājāwī filisṭīnī
Interestingly, foregrounding Jerusalem’s Islamic identity and a critique of Zionism as a colonial threat to its cultural heritage are dominant themes in these songs. Unlike Lebanese singer Fayrouz’s lament for Jerusalem in “zahrat al-madāʾin,” which acknowledges the city’s broader religious significance, Moroccan groups focus more on Islamic solidarity, often omitting references to Jerusalem’s Christian or Jewish history. This betrays a particular way of viewing the conflict as one that involves Arabs and Muslims solely. These omissions also reflect the state of knowledge then, and the inability of these youth to fully contemplate the history of the twentieth century in which the Palestinian issue was born. They sang, chanted, energized audiences, and channeled internal societal frustrations through Palestine. What they created has been a phenomenal sonic archive of Morocco’s Palestine.
Some members of these groups are now in their early 80s. They aged, and the bands have disbanded or fallen into oblivion, but their words and melodies remain. They have acquired an impressive afterlife in YouTube, which has become one of the most accessible tools for Moroccan youth to cultivate political consciousness in the absence of political and civic society organizations of the 1960s. Their ability to blend traditional Moroccan sounds with contemporary social and political concerns created a powerful legacy that continues to inspire future generations of artists and activists of Palestine. In the late 1990s, a new generation of Moroccan artists turned to hip hop to express anger with economic conditions in Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinian political disunity, and the yearning for an Islamic Jerusalem. Moroccan rappers like al-Imbrātūr (The Emperor), a rapper from Casablanca, used their music to challenge official political discourse, criticizing the perceived failure of Tamazghan leaders to address the Palestinian situation effectively. al-Imbrātūr released “For Palestine” in 2009 with the following lyrics:
For Palestine tears fall
In the middle of destruction, siege and poverty
Night is long and life is bitter
They killed Arafat, Cheikh Yassine and Mohammed al-Dora
Still free, still with strong will
[….]
Arabs for their interests [have]forsaken you
If you see us quiet, it’s not our fault
Our rulers have forgotten Islam
As long as night lasts, the light of dawn will rise.
A hallmark of the current hip hop protest for Palestinian rights is the use of sampling and remixing. al-Imbrātūr and other rappers borrow lyrics and sounds from earlier protest music, linking their work to historical struggles while critiquing both Arab leaders and Israeli policies. For example, the voices of Shimon Perez or Arab leaders are included in the context of Palestinian child calling for economic help or mourning dead relative. The remixing of past and present texts, including the 1970s’ songs of Nāss El Ghiwāne, Jīl Jilāla, Larsād and others allows the young rapper of the twenty-first century to challenge both Arab and Israeli politicians about the situation of ordinary Palestinians. Therefore, YouTube has become a crucial platform for Moroccan young rappers like Al Imbrātūr, enabling them to use collage, remixing and mashups to express dissent through remixed videos, overdubbed speeches, and mashups that challenge mainstream media narratives. YouTube and other social media platforms have democratized access to these songs, allowing a more dynamic interaction with the issues their author have musicalized.
These popular music bands rose to prominence during a time of intense intellectual, political, and cultural upheaval in Morocco, particularly in the early 1970s. They gave voice to the concerns of the common people, blending traditional Moroccan sounds with lyrics that were written to function as social and political commentary. These bands exemplify the power of art as a tool for social change. Their bold, politically charged lyrics and innovative musical styles allowed them to address the struggles of ordinary Moroccans while fostering a sense of national and cultural solidarity with the Palestinians. Despite facing censorship and exclusion, their legacies continue to inspire new generations of activists and artists including football ultras and hip-hop singers.