In 2021, the Tiny Desk x globalFEST sequence was created to advertise worldwide music discovery. For the fifth version, we current artists from Cabo Verde, France and Colombia.
Gnawa music has at all times been about breaking down boundaries. With ecstatic vocalizations, stringed devices and clashing percussion, this sound has roots in Morocco, however its West African influences are disparate and the diaspora is huge. Zar Electrik, a trio from Marseille, France, faucets into that centuries-long custom on the Tiny Desk.
Zar Electrik, whose identify references a therapeutic ritual from the Horn of Africa, takes a contemporary strategy to Gnawa, not solely infusing the music with digital manufacturing but additionally an electrical kora — making a sub-Saharan rave sung in Arabic, French and Darija. “Chouf enour” is a cry for freedom, carried out by vocalist Anass Zine with ardour and empathy. He smiles as he briefly sings in English, “I like you, my sister / I like you, my brother.” The trio closes with “Bala dima,” an ode to the mystic nature of night time — within the broad daylight of the NPR Music workplace, ululation erupted from a crowd transported to a midnight trance.
SET LIST
MUSICIANS
- Anass Zine: vocals, guitar, karkabous
- Arthur Péneau: vocals, kora
- Didier Simione: electronics
TINY DESK TEAM
- Producer: Suraya Mohamed
- Director/Editor: Maia Stern
- Audio Technical Director: Josh Newell
- Host/Sequence Producer: Bobby Carter
- Videographers: Maia Stern, Kara Body, Wendy Li
- Audio Engineer: Andie Huether
- Audio Combine: Josephine Nyounai
- Manufacturing Assistant: Dora Levite
- Photographer: Sofia Seidel
- Inventive Designer: Jackie Lay
- Tiny Desk Group: Lars Gotrich, Joshua Bryant, Ashley Pointer
- globalFEST Group: Isabel Soffer, Invoice Bragin, Shanta Thake, Priscila Santana, Ian Thake
- Sequence Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson
- VP, Visuals and Music: Keith Jenkins