Houcine Slaoui – Wikipedia

Houcine Ben BouchaïB (1918–1951), nicknamed Houcine Slaoui (in Arabic : Hussein Al -Salawi ) due to his birth in Salé, is a Moroccan composer singer, also lute ^{[ first ]} , which marked the history of popular Moroccan music ^{[ first ]} .

He is considered the father of Moroccan castle music. The cause of his death remains a mystery today.

After the death of his father, Houcine is the only son of the family still alive. After the death of his older brother Abdellah, the very young Houcine is responsible for supporting his six sisters and his mother according to Moroccan family tradition. He already has an immeasurable passion for music.

We often see it in the Halqas de Salé, directed by the Mâalems Moulay Bouih (whimsical) and Boujemaâ El Ferrouj. The latter, including Houcine, fascinated, receives teaching, sings the themes of everyday life in Morocco: economic deprivation, French occupation, the life of city dwellers compared to that of peasants, family problems, trade .. . Halqas are the real passion of the young Houcine. He spends hours admiring them, having little interest in the Koranic school, enjoying an incredible carefree until his mother, worried, sets him out, especially in these times troubled by the protectorate, insecurity reigned in the streets, and that the young boy wandered until nightfall. One day, while she is looking for it, panicked, for long hours, she finds it near the tombs of the Salé cemetery, quietly playing a rope instrument of its manufacture: a tarro (rudimentary can) with metal metal cables bicycle brakes!
At the age of 12, in the 1930s, Houcine obtained phenomenal success during his musical performances and in these famous outdoor concerts. The adolescent gets tired of the recriminations of his mother who imposes a professional future of which he does not want. He therefore left the family home to continue his vocation as itinerant musician, like troubadours and found in the West.

During his wanderings, the young Houcine went to Casablanca, where he gave his halqa near the mausoleum of Sidi Belyout and performs in Meknes near Bab Mansour El Aleuj. Everywhere, he gathered a great success with his audience who appreciate his musical game, the themes of his songs.

At the age of 14, he moved to Paris and exercised the profession of apprentice tanner. He then climbed to Paris where the “song of exile” pushes his first cries and fraternized with his Maghreb brothers like the Tunisian Mohamed Jamoussi or the Algerian Missoum, the latter
composed three songs to him.

At 20, he began to compose his own music and write his own texts. During his career, he discussed all social subjects: the corruption that raged during the famine of the 1940s, love and disenchantment (Yamna), the character of his compatriots (HDI Rassek Lay Fouzou Bik El Qoumane Ya Flane). ..Houcine Slaoui develops an undeniable talent by subtly pointing to where it hurts. We also owe him the immortelle Dakhlat l’Sa Marikane, telling with humor the landing in 1942 of American military troops in Morocco.

This precursor of the World Music became friends with a French pianist from Casablanca and landed in Paris just after the Second World War and signed a contract with the powerful discographic label “Pathé Marconi” with whom he records around thirty songs and sketches . Thanks to the broadcasting of these sound recordings, his voice becomes famous in the Maghreb and ensures sustainability. It was not so for many of his contemporaries like the talented Boujem’a Al Farrouj, a renowned singer, but of which there is no sound or visual testimony. He had adopted an eclectic style in his treatment of Moroccan ranges, rhythms and styles; He was looking for like any “Hlayqi” (street singer of the halqa) to satisfy all tastes and chose to sing “like …” by integrating all regional genres into a very personal molding.

He therefore used a large number of Moroccan ranges and rhythms but also modes of the East Arabic song, which he stylized and conditioned by the rhythm and the words in dialectal Arabic of the country. In this sense, his musical style can be considered an intermediary between the popular folk song “ahâzîj” and the more elaborate style of the so -called “modern” song.

The link that Slaoui had with a popular theme imposed limits on his melody and his choices in terms of composition; Yet he conferred on this one a touch of liveliness and vigor; His song was monothematic and carried out rehearsals that the listeners never tired by the richness of the tonal variety that the poetic text and its prosody had to include.

Slaoui was witness to an eventful era and a generation that lived the throes of the Second World War and French colonialism: mobilization of the living forces for European fronts, scarcity and rationing throughout the Chérifian territory, upheaval of habits and change of customs consecutive in brutal contact with Western populations; Resumed in the two famous songs “HDI Rassek” (be careful!) And the humorous “Al Mirikan” (the Americans) which was taken up by many singers. Many couplets of popular songs refer directly to the time of “Aâm l’Boun”.

Some poems tell how the tribes of Smâala and Bni Khirane, in the Doukkala region, managed to make their own detergent. Others express the scarcity and excessive price of textiles. The Nass El Ghiwane, those that Martin Scorsese called “the Rolling Stones of Africa” ​​evokes in one of their songs, Aâm Ajjoua (literally, the year of hunger), this episode is sometimes described as “aâm Lalimane (the year of Germany) ”, evoking the height -buried dead without shroud, the brides who have nothing to wear and the abusive requisitions of livestock … But it is undoubtedly Houcine Slaoui, iconoclastic artist who composed the song that paints a faithful portrait of the city life of the 1940s. His successful air (“H’di Rassek”, “Take care”) summarizes misery and discrimination that characterized this era. A legend says that Houcine Slaoui would have been poisoned or suicide.