Founded 13 years ago in reaction to the hate murder of Sudanese student El Amin Abdel Radi in a Prague university dormitory, the Respect Festival continues to foster vital cultural awareness by providing access to an unparalleled variety of world music.

In years past, the Respect Festival's program has not only included well-known musical genres such as Afro-beat, Balkan and Central European folk music, but also a challenging mix of Haitian Voodoo funk, Cambodian Psychedelia and sacred Sufi music. Returning to the rugged yet scenic Štvanice Island this week, the Respect Festival offers a two-day musical mix including music from the Congo, China, Serbia, Somaliland and North Africa with a touch of experimental fusion from the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.

Among this year's headliners is a Moroccan group that has emerged in the past 25 years from being an in-demand wedding band in their hometown of Agadir to a transcontinental touring success.

Representative of most of the bands at this year's Respect Festival, Oudaden plays a music as road-tested as it is heartfelt. As drummer Mohammed Jemoumekh tells The Prague Post, "We are well known for playing with emotion. We are not just playing notes; there is an intuitive connection with each band member, their instruments and the music. This music runs in our blood; we did not learn it."

With their well-received live performances in Brazil, Europe, America, Malaysia and Mali, Oudaden now qualify as one of the world's more accomplished global representatives of North African music. Still, Oudaden may have achieved their most significant cultural success before they went international. The sweeping popularity of their 14 albums over the past two decades in Morocco has bridged a previously impassable gap between Arab and Berber popular music.

And it's easy to hear why, as evidenced by their stunning live performance at Prague's Lucerna Music bar last February. When Oudaden hit the stage, their pounding Atlantic oceans beats, soaring Mediterranean-meets-the-Sahara melodies and deep Moroccan soul persistently tear the roof off. These moments are best described by Jemoumekh when he says, "Sometimes when we play, we travel beyond space and matter."

Part of the power of Oudaden's music is its roots in a nearly forgotten civilization. The Amazigh, as the North Africa's Berber-speaking people (and Oudaden's members) prefer to call themselves, have a cultural heritage reaching back to the Algerian desert cave paintings of 12,000 B.C.

"The Amazigh civilization was the original civilization of Morocco. Centuries before the Arabic expansion, Amazigh music was already well-developed and established. Amazigh music with its ancient roots can be seen as a primary influence on many other forms of the world's earliest forms of music," Jemoumekh says.

Over the centuries, the Amazigh's vibrant music and storytelling have remained current and have been further fueled today by the electronic media of CDs, video and the Internet. This spirit of Amazigh dynamism is reflected in how Oudaden artfully uses not only electric guitar and electric bass but also the American banjo.

It may seem odd to Westerners that Moroccans play banjos, but a strikingly similar membrane resonator-plucked instrument in Morocco known as the gimbri is regarded by many as the banjo's grandfather. Jemoumekh admits Oudaden were not the first band in Morocco to make the natural switch between the gimbri and banjo.

"The banjo was already in use when we started our band, with bands like Nas El Ghiwane, Izenzaren," Jemoumekh says. "So we incorporated that into our sound using traditional instruments. This all was natural to our process of working with all the popular music of the time."

This sort of musical give-and-take about is something all of the performers at this year's Respect Festival can easily relate to.

To list a few examples, an Ethiopian free-jazz saxophonist will team up with a Netherlands progressive punk outfit known as the Ex to provide a heady mix of electric guitar and saxophone epiphanies. Softer African sounds will be heard from the soaring voice and heartbeat lilt of Somalia's Sahra Halgan. While acts like the Czech Republic's Pavel Richter and China's Wang Lee promise a more ambient if not meditative sound, the Congo's Staffe Benda Billi will certainly have people dancing with their up-to-date Kinsasa Afro-beat brew. Balkan music will be represented by Serbia's Ljubisa Stojanovic, known by his fans simply as Louis, who will conclude the festival with an additional show at Prague's Palác Akropolis.

With food booths, a children's play zone, a relaxed atmosphere and a world-class lineup of musicians, the Respect Festival is bound to satisfy both world music fans and those who are simply curious about the vital diversity of popular music.


Source: http://www.praguepost.com/