1st Brooklyn Show this Thursday, Apr. 5 at Proteus Gowanus

Get your rare North African music fix the night before Passover! I will be spinning and discussing music in North Africa and North African music in Israel as part of Proteus Gowanus' series on migration. This session comes on the heels of a recent trip to Israel that netted some long lost Libyan music and more.

Samy Elmaghribi and his boys perform in Morocco

Proteus Gowanus
543 Union Street Brooklyn, NY  11215
718.243.1572

Thursday, April 5, 8 pm
$5 admission

Music, Migration and the Maghreb
By the beginning of the 20th century, the phonograph had become a fixture in bars, cafes and theaters across North Africa. With an eye toward a new market, the major international record labels soon moved in and recorded the greatest Jewish and Muslim musicians of their generation. The labels captured sounds that would come not only to define Arabic music in the region but also to preserve a fascinating history of Jewish-Muslim musical collaboration in the Maghreb. By mid-century, North Africa and the music scene changed dramatically.

In the immediate aftermath of Israel’s establishment and Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian independence, thousands of Jews from across the region made the Jewish state their new home including many of these musicians. Israel held little promise of a continued career for these artists and almost no hope of continued collaboration until a pioneering Moroccan immigrant found a cache of phonographs in a Jaffa flea market, started recording those around him and preserved this shared patrimony while enabling new styles to emerge. Join us to hear the story as we spin rare records from North Africa and Israel.

For more information, click here.