From the deserts of Mali with Tuareg band Tinariwen, to the Sahara further north, and the sublime singer Oum El Ghaït Benessahraoui from her 2013 album, Soul of Morocco. Oum, as she is generally known has a variety of influences, was born in Casablanca and grew up in Marrrakech. She mixes hassani, jazz, gospel, afrobeat, Sufi music and soul, influenced not only by Aretha Franklin or Ella Fitzgerald, but also traditional desert poetry. Many of her songs express pride in her culture, and with her impressive voice, and with that occasional high throaty warble that is certainly not in her western heroines' repertoire, she is regarded as something of a Moroccan cultural ambassador. Intricate guitar work and acoustic bass also interweaves with afrobeat rhythms, and this song, Taragalte, refers to a three-day festival in the region. Her latest album, Zarabi, which means "carpets" in Moroccan Darija, is a tribute to the carpet weavers of the village of M'Hamid El Ghizlane.
زرناك و بهواك راحنا متعلقين عشنا و شفنا ماحنا ناسين
زرناك و بهواك راحنا متعلقين
عشنا و شفنا ماحنا ناسين
لباب الصحراء حنا جينا
بروح إفريقيا غنينا
لصمت النجوم سمعنا
الفن كل ليلة ليلة
الاشعار و الانغام الزينة و الكل كان زين
تارغلت تارغلت يا مرحبتي
محمد يا زين الغزلان خير الناس فيك
فيك أكرم أكرم خيام يا وني يا وني بيك
Join us,
Come and join us at Taragalte
To the Sahara's gate
Come on and join us
Listen to the sound of peace,
Love, simplicity, complicity
Come on, come on, come on, join my people of Taragalte
Oasis of cultures and place of peace and dreams
Place of soul and mystery
Come to the desert,
Come to Taragalte.
Come into my people
Come join us
You … come on
Come on
Play that beat
Play that rhythm
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