Bab L’Bluz

(2020), named for Morocco’s new wave of counter-culture urban artists that led to a musical revolution, received widespread acclaim by major media outlets around the world. The band tours the globe with their “potion of supercharged, rock’n’roll ‘Gnawa of the future’” (RFI, 2024). Lovers of freedom, outraged by injustice, the Moroccan singer-songwriter Yousra Mansour and French musician Brice Bottin propel the amped-up sounds of guembris and aouicha far and wide, as if determined to make themselves heard. Drawing on the spirit of psychedelic rock, they usher gnawa trance, amazigh chants and chaabi polyrhythms into a new dimension. Their second album, Swaken, was released in 2024.