In a rap scene dominated by men, women’s voices are starting to make themselves heard in Morocco.
Houda Abouz, a 24-year-old who majors in film studies at a university in Tetouan, has long been fascinated by hip-hop, and, encouraged by friends, she picked up a microphone and began to perform.
In January, she appeared in Hors Serie, a song in which she performed alongside three major male rap stars in Morocco: Elgrande Toto, Don Bigg and Draganov.
Photo: Reuters
The video has been viewed about 16 million times on YouTube — a reflection of the popularity that the genre enjoys across the north African kingdom — and its success encouraged Abouz to go it alone.
She followed up in February with her debut single KickOff, in which she rails against a society that she says does not offer women equal opportunities.
“I am a self-made artist and I write my own lyrics, speaking my mind,” she said in an interview in the capital Rabat.
“Rap is my passion and my defense mechanism in a patriarchal society,” added Abouz, who goes by the name “Khtek,” meaning “your sister.”
Her lyrics, delivered in the Moroccan Arabic dialect with French or English-language phrases thrown in, are sometimes explicit.
“Bad ass, I survived war, drugs, craziness and love,” she sings in KickOff. “Many things did not work out because we are ladies in the country of the dick.”
Over the past few months, the country’s rap scene has become embroiled in politics after a rapper, Gnawi, was sentenced to a year in prison for insulting the police in a video.
Abouz is not alone. Another Moroccan female hip-hop star, Manal, had the hit song Slay, which was viewed 44 million times on YouTube.
Abouz, who describes herself as a feminist and supporter of LGBTQ rights, said that she was influenced by the pro-democracy protests that shook Morocco in 2011.
However, she said that her music does not serve a political agenda, but gives “a taste of the street and of the deep Morocco.”
The prevalence of men in the rap world reflects Morocco’s conservative society, she said, but her work tries to seize back the narrative for women.
“I write better than you, though you think I’m just a girl,” she sings in KickOff.
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