1976 Jil Jilala - العيون عينية famious song Laayoune Ayniya

A song i know from i stil was a child. Amazing how i grow up with music from every where... even the arabic music is connected trough my life as a red cord...

See also the remix of this famious song. that after almost 35 years now becam populair to the new generation - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmXUD86DlhA

Jil Jilala is a Moroccan musical group which rose to prominence in the 1970s among the movement created by Nass El Ghiwane and Lem Chaheb. Jil Jilala was founded in Marrakech in 1972 by performing arts students Mohamed Derhem, Moulay Tahar Asbahani, Sakina Safadi, Mahmoud Essaadi, Hamid Zoughi and Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri (who had just left Nass el Ghiwane). In 1974, they released their first record Lyam Tnadi on the Atlassiphone label. It was only a matter of time before Leklam Lemrassaa, Baba Maktoubi, Ha L'ar a Bouya, Jilala, and Chamaa became popular classics.

They wrote Laayoune Ayniya / this song / about the Green March. The song becomes almost a national anthem that is chanted when Moroccans from all over the country marched as one towards the Moroccan Sahara, then occupied by Spain.The Green March was a well-publicized popular march of enormous proportions. On November 6, 1975, approximately 350,000 unarmed Moroccans converged on the city of Tarfaya in southern Morocco and waited for a signal from King Hassan II to cross into Western Sahara. They brandished Moroccan flags, banners calling for the "return of the Moroccan Sahara," photographs of the King and the Qur'an; the color green for the march's name was intended as a symbol of Islam. As the marchers reached the border Spanish troops were ordered not to fire to avoid bloodshed. / there was no violence :-D

Contrary to Nass El Ghiwane, who were primarily influenced by the Gnawa music, Jil Jilala took their inspiration from other form of traditional Moroccan music like the Malhun, sung in a classical and old form of Moroccan Arabic, or the spiritual music of Jilala, a traditional sufi brotherhood. The goal of these groups was the rejuvenation of traditional Moroccan music.

The Eighties saw the coming of the wonder gnaoui Mustafa Bakbou from the formation Tiq Maya. Bakbou, sometimes written as "Baqbou" is considered to be the number one Gnawa musician of Africa!

Although Jil Jilala have had a lesser influence on the Moroccan music as did Nass el Ghiwane, they have brought much novelty to it. For years it seems that the line-up changed with the seasons. We see the leave and return of Sakina Safadi and also Mustafa Bakbou set out to return again. Even Tahiri will leave the group to return 10 years later. Just a few months before Mohamed Derham, heart of the group, left.

Derham, today, works in a communication agency. Mustafa Bakbou now has his own group GnAwA, including wife and children, continuing the very old tradition to keep the fire burning from father to sons and daughters. Since 2006 Jil Jilala are recording and performing together with Uve Muellrich and Marlon Klein of Germany's Dissidenten.