Bab L’ Bluz

Name: Bab L’ Bluz
Start: 2025-04-18T19:00:00-04:00
Location: De La Luz Soundstage

Schedule

Fri, 18 Apr, 2025 at 07:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

De La Luz Soundstage | Holyoke, MA

Bab L’ Bluz (literally “The door of the Blues”) are reclaiming the blues for North Africa. Fronted by an African-Moroccan woman in a traditionally male role, the band are devoted to a revolution in attitude which dovetails with Morocco’s ‘nayda’ youth movement – a new wave of artists and musicians taking their cues from local heritage, singing words of freedom in the Moroccan-Arabic dialect of darija. Ancient and current, funky and rhythmic, buoyed by Arabic lyrics, soaring vocals and bass-heavy grooves, Nayda! seems to pulse from the heart of the Maghreb.
Armed with their electric guembris, Bab L’ Bluz resonates a mixture of Gnawa trance rhythms, Hassani songs from southern Morocco and Chaabi polyrhythms, propelling their music into the magnetic fields of psychedelic rock and volutes of incense. Led by a woman doukkalia, the group wants to carry a revolution of attitude being part of the movement of the Moroccan youth “Nayda”, a new wave of artists and committed musicians who are inspired by the local heritage and sing texts of freedom in the Moroccan Arabic dialect, the darija.
Very active since its creation, the power quartet travels the globe to distill its hypnotic riffs and spread its mystical and liberating headbanging frenzy to its audience – a true signature of the group.