Azzddine

Azzddine Ouhnine, a Rabat-based Moroccan composer and oud player, appears billed simply as Azzddine on the 2004 release Massafat, though the album actually lists the project as Azzddine with Bill Laswell. After encountering a low-fidelity capture of one of his concerts, the Switzerland-based Barbarity imprint—devoted to cross-cultural collaborations linking African artists with musicians from Europe and America—chose to record a full CD with him. Massafat blends Ouhnine’s vocals, oud, and darbukka with input from roughly a dozen additional performers handling violins, keyboards, background singing, programming, and drums. Among those contributors, bassist Bill Laswell stood out; he ended up supplying bass parts on eight of the fourteen tracks even though the initial request called for his presence on only one or two selections. The resulting album fuses traditional Moroccan music with elements of electronic dance music, rap, and dub reggae.