Beatkozina is an electronic and world music duo based in Marrakech made up of Mehdi Naami (DJ, musician, and producer) and Gregory Jouandon (jazz drummer, pianist, composer, and producer). While on a trip to Morocco to explore North African rhythms, Gregory meets Mehdi Naami the resident DJ of Buddha Bar Marrakech.
Both multi-instrumentalists, they share a strong passion for electronic music as well as world music. Beatkozina is the fruit of this interesting artistic encounter. Their collaboration draws its energy from the Afro matrix as well as a wide range of influences from North African, the Middle East, Indian traditional music, jazz, and Afro-Latin music.
Their sound is tied to researching African rhythmic and pentatonic mutations within new ecosystems including Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States. They perform a connection between Electro and Afro trances through the identification of Moroccan rhythmic patterns, minimalism, transposition, and confrontation producing a tribal, complex, contemporary sound that carries a subliminal message of universality and identity at the same time.
Beatkozina's approach is all about performing musical connections between diverse musical traditions and beyond borders. The track "Soye" draws a triangular symbolism combining a Brazilian rhythmic pattern to Gnawi tradition carried out by the claps and the guembri bass line, and to jazz chords bringing together African, Latin American, and Western musical traditions.
In Hausa language, the language spoken by the largest native African ethnic group in Africa, the word "Soye" literally means "to love." This tune is conceived, not just as an ode to love, but also as an ode to music of African descent, and more broadly to African heritage which motives and patterns travel through time and space. That motion is brought up by the polyrhythmic progression of the track where the layers of drums are reminiscent of traditional hand percussions and syncopated drumming that, ultimately and simply, make you dance.
Landing on the shores of Essaouira—the historical port of Mogador—in a summer afternoon, brings about a luminously dusty and dry sensation carried by a wind called Sirocco. Beatkozina has grounded this complex tune on the metaphor of this iconic wind: born in the Sahara Desert, the Sirocco travels along the northern cost of North Africa before reaching Europe.
The track generates an atmosphere of sparkling euphory with a steady groovy bass progression, just like a festive parade through the streets of the coastal city. The piano chords and brass sounds bridge influences from North American Jazz fusion a la Herbie Hancock to Afrobeat. The African Fulani flute along with the vocals create a sense of lightness evoking the wind movement but also the ethereal presences on the city's characteristic rooftops. The tune is filled with sun-kissed moments that are meant to generate the feeling of walking in the streets of Essaouira in a summer afternoon.
Both multi-instrumentalists, they share a strong passion for electronic music as well as world music. Beatkozina is the fruit of this interesting artistic encounter. Their collaboration draws its energy from the Afro matrix as well as a wide range of influences from North African, the Middle East, Indian traditional music, jazz, and Afro-Latin music.
Their sound is tied to researching African rhythmic and pentatonic mutations within new ecosystems including Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States. They perform a connection between Electro and Afro trances through the identification of Moroccan rhythmic patterns, minimalism, transposition, and confrontation producing a tribal, complex, contemporary sound that carries a subliminal message of universality and identity at the same time.
Beatkozina's approach is all about performing musical connections between diverse musical traditions and beyond borders. The track "Soye" draws a triangular symbolism combining a Brazilian rhythmic pattern to Gnawi tradition carried out by the claps and the guembri bass line, and to jazz chords bringing together African, Latin American, and Western musical traditions.
In Hausa language, the language spoken by the largest native African ethnic group in Africa, the word "Soye" literally means "to love." This tune is conceived, not just as an ode to love, but also as an ode to music of African descent, and more broadly to African heritage which motives and patterns travel through time and space. That motion is brought up by the polyrhythmic progression of the track where the layers of drums are reminiscent of traditional hand percussions and syncopated drumming that, ultimately and simply, make you dance.
Landing on the shores of Essaouira—the historical port of Mogador—in a summer afternoon, brings about a luminously dusty and dry sensation carried by a wind called Sirocco. Beatkozina has grounded this complex tune on the metaphor of this iconic wind: born in the Sahara Desert, the Sirocco travels along the northern cost of North Africa before reaching Europe.
The track generates an atmosphere of sparkling euphory with a steady groovy bass progression, just like a festive parade through the streets of the coastal city. The piano chords and brass sounds bridge influences from North American Jazz fusion a la Herbie Hancock to Afrobeat. The African Fulani flute along with the vocals create a sense of lightness evoking the wind movement but also the ethereal presences on the city's characteristic rooftops. The tune is filled with sun-kissed moments that are meant to generate the feeling of walking in the streets of Essaouira in a summer afternoon.
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