The Franco-Moroccan band, Bab L’ Bluz, which translates as “gateway to the blues,” has fully earned its universal praise. Its first album Nayda! grabbed the attention of media across the globe, introducing them to new fans through the BBC, Vogue Arabia, the New York Times and the like. It was in the heart of Marrakesh that these four young artists made a pact: to electrify the Gnawa repertoire as much as possible to amplify the plucked resonance of the traditional three-stringed lute, the guembri. And did they ever! Since 2021, Bab L’ Bluz has toured across four continents, spreading its hypnotic, riff-driven, high-wattage sound.

Singer and guitarist Yousra Mansour, the epitome of raw female energy, bears some resemblance to Courtney Love in her heyday but, as a Moroccan descendant of a long-standing Berber-Arab family, she is every bit a Doukkala artist. You only have to see her perform in the intoxicating “Imazighen,” a track from the band’s second album Swaken, to get a sense of her feminine power. Bab L’ Bluz’s rock sound is like a pomegranate bursting with oriental flavours, where its fresh peel is French guitarist and producer Brice Bottin, an impressive musician who draws his inspiration from a wide range of music, from psychedelic to funk. Everything revolves around the electrifying power of the guitar-like Guembri. This power quartet’s difference stems from its overriding drive to distill the singing tradition of southern Morocco (Hassani) into Chaâbi (Arabo-Andalusian music). Listening to their music is like taking a magic carpet ride to follow a 2025 version of the hippie dream, with poetry sung in the Moroccan Arabic dialect, Darija, and a Gnawa sound that swirls like a dust devil; Bab L’ Bluz is just the kind of band that the likes of Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin would have loved. Keep a compass on hand so you don’t get too lost, their soundscape is infinite…