Norfafrica Shares the Sounds of a Region on the Rise
Through the release of their first mixtape, the open-source collective shows how it connects musicians and promotes artistic developments from Morocco to Sudan.
In September 2022, artists of North African origin from all over the world gathered in the Moroccan desert to make a mixtape. Together, they embarked on a creative journey that would connect the sounds of the region from Morocco to Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, and beyond.
“It was a hectic week,” says Norf, the name the founder of Norfafrica, the open-source collective that brought the artists together, goes by. “It wasn’t funded by any label, we organized it out of our own pockets. We rented a house, brought a bunch of recording equipment, had, like, five people sleeping in one bed; it was pretty gutter. But good music came out of it.”
The tracks created during this DIY artist residency form the backbone of THE NORF TAPE which has been two years in the making, and is set to be released in May.
“The tape is all about collaboration,” explains Norf in an interview with OkayAfrica. “It mixes different sounds and creates new ones, featuring up-and-coming names that are barely even known. 95 percent of the artists come from North Africa, but some of them hadn’t heard of each other before. When someone spits a verse, we think of who would fit and pitch them to each other.”
Norfafrica was started in 2019 as a platform to highlight alternative and overlooked rap from the region. “I grew up on hip-hop blogs like Fader and Pitchfork, always loved Okayplayer and was a fan of Soulection and curator platforms,” shares Norf. “We don’t have anything like that for North African urban music.”
Initially focusing on the Libyan, Tunisian, and Moroccan scenes, Norfafrica gradually expanded to include all countries in the region. Rather than simply sharing music news, it curates a thoughtful showcase and in-depth catalog of artistic developments, both for people on the continent and in the diaspora.
Being picked up by an eager audience, the platform quickly grew into a collective and a brand, influencing fashion and shaping taste through its consequential end-of-year lists. “We listen to every single rapper from all the countries,” says Norf (here’s the best of 2023).
He explains that music industries in North Africa are not like their counterparts in the West. “The game is different, because there’s no financial incentive. The labels don’t have a grip yet and haven’t saturated the ad space. We’re doing this independently.”
Receiving submissions from the diaspora as well as the continent, the collective decided to make THE NORF TAPE an Arabic language tape. “It’s for us, by us, to establish ourselves in the industry,” says Norf. “It’s not money-based, it’s all love.”
So, what makes North African rap unique? And does such a vast region have a specific sound? Norf explains that there are various sonics and subject matters, as well as different musical histories. Before the YouTube era, North African countries were siloed off from one another and only megastars were listened to across borders.
While the Francophone countries have been rapping for a long time, the genre is more nascent, but definitely thriving, in Egypt and Sudan. “There’s no label head telling you what to talk about in your songs,” he says about the genre in North Africa as a whole. “You’re getting people’s unfiltered lyrics.”
The sonics are different across the region, often influenced by the traditional music of each place. “Algeria is still on that Eminem-type vibe,” he says. “Egyptian production is very influenced by Mahraganat.” Morocco tended to gravitate towards lyrical prowess, until new artists introduced different sonic elements.
While there is less music coming out of Libya and Algeria, those fan bases have been building up Tunisian artists. There’s a strong sense of community between Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, and there have been times where the whole rap scenes beefed.
Infamously, Egypt and Morocco have such robust scenes, that they mostly listen to their own people. However, Sudanese are tapped into various sonic worlds, including Egypt, the West, and the Gulf. “Sudanese artists have massive potential, because their musical history has its own intonation and their Arabic accent, like the Libyans, is easily understandable to other Arabic speakers,” says Norf.
The collective has already rolled out four songs of THE NORF TAPE and is getting ready to tease another four, before releasing the whole project. Well-known names, like Ziad Zaza and Figoshin, have contributed, but there are also songs by artists who have not yet achieved commercial success.
When asked who they’re watching in 2024, Norf mentions musicians that are featured on the mixtape, like Egypt’s Fadila, Libya’s Ka7la, and Sudan’s Mvndila. For Algeria, he highlights Zahham, for Tunisia Sevenbaby, and from Morocco, he praises Raste as someone who is a true creative.
“The scene is still young and we have to be a part of the development,” says Rachid Jebari, a Moroccan producer and Norf’s partner at Norfafrica where he appears as Moroccan Connect. “We’re setting the foundations so others can learn from our mistakes. It’s an interesting and scary time.”
Norf agrees: “If we don’t do it, a typical label will come and mess it up. Our culture is an industry and a resource, just like oil. We want to promote independent artists as much as possible because we care about the future of this music.”
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