As I first visited Oujda in January 1997, I was keen on discovering the famed music life of the city. Supposedly, every corner should have its own musicians, but as I was walking through the streets on this cold winter evening, there was no music to hear anywhere. I tried every street that radiated out from the main centre of such activities: Bab el-Wahab.
>It wasn't until the next evening that I heard the first sounds of instruments coming out from a clearing between the houses. The show performed there was of the very simple type with nothing fancy except a cane used in the dance. A compère with a loudspeaker on full kept the show running until the dancers entered a stage of near-trance.
The music heard here is far, far away from most European music, despite the fact that this is in the very north of Morocco. (Please note that the quality is quite poor, something which has two reasons: The circumstances were difficult, and the file is made for the inferior Real Audio version 1-system.)
