“Maatal-la” tells of a district of Aauin where a part of the native Sahrawi remain under the continuous oppressions by Morocco.
“Tefla Madlouma”, is a song about an assaulted girl. In the occupied territory, young students are often arrested arbitrarily and maltreated. Recently, a group of six students, who were invited to participate in a congress in the UK, were stopped as they tried to depart from the airport in Agadir. Though their papers, tickets and invitation were all in order, they were arrested and tortured.
The CD's musical genesis tells a happier tale. It is based on Mariem's search for a new musical partner after her serious illness and the loss of Baba Salama in 2005. He was her prized musical confidant, guitarist and director of her previous CD "Deseos" released in the same year. As she searched and one year led to the next without result, she wrote new songs, contemplated the plight of her people and matured a vision for a new work. Then providence struck.
One day before a concert in August 2009 the contracted guitarist couldn´t turn up (refuse of a visa). Mariem desperately looked for a replacement. She and Nubenegra knew of a young guitarrist, who had recently arrived in Spain trying to get in contact with Mariem. Now Mariem was looking for him. She called everywhere, and at last he answered. He agreed to play with her in the show in Gran Canaria. He took a night train from Barcelona to Madrid, then made his way to the airport for the flight to Gran Canaria. Just as Nubenegra´s Manuel Dominguez spied him arrive, he saw him whisked off by the police. Manuel raced to intervene, his heart pounding. Fortunately the police let him pass after normal custon´s procedures.
As they played together on stage, Mariem knew her search for a new guitarist was over. With Lamgaifri she could share her kinship with Azawan. Over the next two months Mariem and Lamgaifri worked exclusively together in Mariem’s home in Sabadell to lay down the basic tracks of all the songs that would become “Shouka”. One of them is Mariem's tribute to her former guitarist, a song called by his own name, “Baba Salama”.
The songs of “Shouka” give proof of the creative relationship between Mariem and her new guitarist, Lamgaifri, and are dedicated to Mariem’s people, the Sahrawi.
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