Bab L' Bluz - Live at Musica Mundo Festival Amersfoort 2022
Bab L' Bluz - Live MTN Bushfire Festival 2021
One thing that has been very important to you is your message of spreading love, peace, and respect through music, and I'm wondering in these globally very tumultuous times we are in do you still feel that you are able to make a difference?
Brice Bottin: Yeah, for sure. Our audience are mixed with all kind of people, and when we play they realize that they'll enjoy the same stuff. I remember we were at the Oregon Sisters Folk Festival where there were these very American people with boots and you know, the cowboy style. And they really enjoyed our show, and even that Yousra was singing in Moroccan Darija, they seemed to having fun. They told us they enjoyed a lot the show and there are a lot of both points of convergence because of music. So we know that people who grew up in Oregon can like the same stuff that people born in Morocco or France or whatever. Because it's a bit rock and it's a bit trance. And in a lot of kinds of music, they can recognize themselves in it.
Yousra Mansour: I think music now is needed more than any time to bring people together. I think in these very difficult times, it's important to keep doing what you're doing – even though it's very hard because we can see the tension, and feel the tension in some places, where sometimes people will have less courage to go to a show, especially to go to a Moroccan show because maybe they don't speak the same language or don't have the same religion, or especially because of political opinions. But I think most people find their courage and they don't care. Then they see they might appreciate the same music and dance in the same way. And then they also stand and fight for peace. So we're not alone. A lot of people are also fighting for the same purpose.
Bottin and Mansour: It's why we do this.
I am very interested that you've made a point of talking about Darija, which is the language you sing in. For people who don't know about the language, would you tell me about it and why it became this thing to sing in?
Mansour: Yeah. Darija is a mix of a lot of languages – from colonizers and locals. You can find some Arabic words, some French, some Spanish, even some Portuguese words. So it's really a mix of all of this. I grew up speaking Darija, but the native language in Morocco, which is not generally spoken is Amazigh, which is the language of the Berbers. They actually don't like being called Berber, so the word “Amazigh” has a more positive significance. It was sort of banned or forbidden years ago, but then the government restored it. And now even you can find people learning it at school, but my parents and grandparents, they didn't get the chance because it was banned. So Amazigh is the native language of Morocco, but not the whole population speaks it. And so Darija is like the combination of Amazigh, Arabic and other languages. So that's why it's the most popular language in Morocco. We say it's a dialect, though a lot of people say that it is fully Arabic, but I would say no, because a lot of people from the Middle East, when we start speaking in the region, they don't understand because there are many words in Amazigh. So it's a mix that only Moroccans understand. But then there's also “classical” Arabic, and in all the Arab-speaking countries, they use it for papers, institutions, and school, but the dialect of each country is very different than the classic Arabic. So there is also Algerian and Tunisian Darija, which are different, but they all have basically the same roots.
From: https://afropop.org/articles/bab-lbluz-returns-to-america
Brice Bottin: Yeah, for sure. Our audience are mixed with all kind of people, and when we play they realize that they'll enjoy the same stuff. I remember we were at the Oregon Sisters Folk Festival where there were these very American people with boots and you know, the cowboy style. And they really enjoyed our show, and even that Yousra was singing in Moroccan Darija, they seemed to having fun. They told us they enjoyed a lot the show and there are a lot of both points of convergence because of music. So we know that people who grew up in Oregon can like the same stuff that people born in Morocco or France or whatever. Because it's a bit rock and it's a bit trance. And in a lot of kinds of music, they can recognize themselves in it.
Yousra Mansour: I think music now is needed more than any time to bring people together. I think in these very difficult times, it's important to keep doing what you're doing – even though it's very hard because we can see the tension, and feel the tension in some places, where sometimes people will have less courage to go to a show, especially to go to a Moroccan show because maybe they don't speak the same language or don't have the same religion, or especially because of political opinions. But I think most people find their courage and they don't care. Then they see they might appreciate the same music and dance in the same way. And then they also stand and fight for peace. So we're not alone. A lot of people are also fighting for the same purpose.
Bottin and Mansour: It's why we do this.
I am very interested that you've made a point of talking about Darija, which is the language you sing in. For people who don't know about the language, would you tell me about it and why it became this thing to sing in?
Mansour: Yeah. Darija is a mix of a lot of languages – from colonizers and locals. You can find some Arabic words, some French, some Spanish, even some Portuguese words. So it's really a mix of all of this. I grew up speaking Darija, but the native language in Morocco, which is not generally spoken is Amazigh, which is the language of the Berbers. They actually don't like being called Berber, so the word “Amazigh” has a more positive significance. It was sort of banned or forbidden years ago, but then the government restored it. And now even you can find people learning it at school, but my parents and grandparents, they didn't get the chance because it was banned. So Amazigh is the native language of Morocco, but not the whole population speaks it. And so Darija is like the combination of Amazigh, Arabic and other languages. So that's why it's the most popular language in Morocco. We say it's a dialect, though a lot of people say that it is fully Arabic, but I would say no, because a lot of people from the Middle East, when we start speaking in the region, they don't understand because there are many words in Amazigh. So it's a mix that only Moroccans understand. But then there's also “classical” Arabic, and in all the Arab-speaking countries, they use it for papers, institutions, and school, but the dialect of each country is very different than the classic Arabic. So there is also Algerian and Tunisian Darija, which are different, but they all have basically the same roots.
From: https://afropop.org/articles/bab-lbluz-returns-to-america
