Bab L' Bluz (meaning "the gate to the Blues") is a Franco-Moroccan psychedelic rock band from Marrakesh. Photo / Supplied
Bringing modern Moroccan rock to our shores, Bab L’ Bluz say they can’t wait to meet the locals. We catch up with the band for some quickfire questions.
1. Tell us who you are and where you’re from.
We are Bab L’ Bluz and we are from Morocco and France.
2. Describe your sound in one sentence:
Psychedelic North African rock/Gnawa.
3. What does a wonderful festival look, feel and sound like to you?
A wonderful festival looks like a perfect place to express ourselves and introduce our culture and learn about others, learn about the land where the festival is held, artists that are performing and the audience.
We also imagine a festival that is aware of and respectful of its environment, and that tries to innovate in terms of sound and visual experience.
4. What can audiences expect from your Womad performance?
The audience can expect a full-energy concert, with original North African rock sonorities and a traditional singing in Arabic containing a message on basics of peace, love, rebellion and justice. We also advise the audience to train their necks before the concert, so they can move their heads throughout the concert.
5. What is your top festival tip/hack?
Our best advice is to go to the festival with good energy, alone or with your mates. Take a water bottle, it avoids consuming plastic, and make yourself comfortable! Go and see as many shows as possible, often young or new bands have cool stuff to offer and you can discover cool stuff!
6. Top five songs on your playlist?
7. What does success as an artist mean to you?
Success to us means simply reaching out to as many people as possible around the world by introducing our different cultures and original music with meaningful messages. Be able to make little changes in our own community and also other communities.
Success means being able to live from our passion, to share it, and why not to be recognised enough to help certain causes, or to support associations. Success for us is relative, we are also aware that we need to be personally accomplished and at peace with ourselves to appreciate it, but the most important thing is to give ourselves to the music to transmit a positive message to the people who hear it.
8. What does keeping healthy as artists mean to you?
Keeping healthy as an artist means first keep good mental health by controlling the ego that may be often responsible for severe conflicts, being grateful every day for everything that the universe brings to us, tolerance toward ourselves and others, because we’re all sinners, physical health, do body exercise and eat well, avoid drugs hahaha.
Sometimes it’s also good to try to have less control on our lives and just let things go a little bit.
9. What tips would you give upcoming artists?
Believe in yourself, love yourself, control your ego, love others, music is a universal language and a great gift, a therapy. No matter what kind of problem you can face, keep the smile on the stage and try to be as happy as possible out of it as well!
10. What is your dream New Zealand holiday destination?
We never imagined that we would be able to go to New Zealand, so just the thought of going there is already a dream.
We would love to experience the local culture, the food, and be guided to wonderful places by the nice people we’ll meet there.
We are also very interested in meeting the Māori culture, which seems to be very rich and we would like to discover it, and why not share a jam session with local musicians, to create an original mix!
Thank you, peace and love upon you.
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