Fez Festival: Egyptian heritage music comes to Jnan sbil

Friday, May 31, 2024 at 2:28 p.m.

Fez – Egyptian heritage music, drawn from Upper Egypt and revisited, enchanted the public during a concert on Thursday in Jnan Sbil, as part of the 27th Fez Festival of World Sacred Music.

During this heritage and modern evening, the Duoud group, composed of the musician-producer duo Mehdi Haddab and Smadj, succeeded in taking the audience into the innovative world of its music.

The duo, the first group to have crossed the oud with electronic sounds, built a musical cycle that turns to its North African roots while absorbing and transforming contemporary musical styles: break beats, techno, jazz, grooves and sounds of rock guitar.

After crossing the Mediterranean towards the Andalusia of Ziryab, the oud vibrated, according to the psychedelic deviances of Smadj and Mehdi Haddab, creating a unique atmosphere at the Jnan Sbil garden.

The duo subsequently joined Mahmoud Goma’s group for an exclusive creation based on “Kaff saïdi”, music from the heart of Upper Egypt. This fusion was the highlight of this concert, both heritage and modern.

The two groups thus drew on “Kaff saïdi”, an art between Bedouin and Nubian music, and expressing a peasant and jovial humanity which recalls the universe of the city of Luxor, the capital of the civilization of the pharaohs, for the great happiness of the festival audience.

In a statement to MAP, artist Mehdi Haddab indicated that his group is a project he has been working on for years with musician Smadj, with the aim of producing musical sounds combining oud and electronic music.

And to emphasize that he met, last summer in Luxor, the artist Mahmoud Goma and his group, and decided to work together, which made it possible to create “a beautiful musical creation”, bringing together the popular Egyptian repertoire. and modern music.