Since the end of September, Morocco has been experiencing a certain level of turmoil and uncertainty that hasn’t been witnessed in quite a while with citizens taking to the streets in the past few weeks to express their discontent towards the current state of the country’s educational and health systems.
Met with heightened levels of repression, the movement— carried under the name GENZ212— has faced increasing pushback from both authorities and institutions, videos circulating online often showing peaceful protesters being beaten before being arrested. These scenes have drawn criticism from human rights observers and sparked online debates over police conduct and civil liberties.
Sparked by the deaths of eight pregnant women in a hospital in Agadir, at its core, demonstrators have been pointing to the dichotomy that exists between Morocco and al-Maghreb as a way of describing the two different faces of the same country— one modern and polished, enjoyed by a few, and another neglected and struggling, lived by most.
Many have also found a way of denouncing this imbalance by pointing to the massive stadiums being built ahead of the 2025 AFCON and the 2034 FIFA World Cup, which come across as billion-dirham trophies built for the world’s gaze while the country’s own people still wait for their own basic needs to be met.
For weeks now, marchers have been going against the State through non-violent rallies, though representatives of this same State have appeared not only deaf to their demands but even dismissive, answering chants with crackdowns and questions with cuffs. As momentum grew across the country, its lyricists started to respond in the only way they know how: through music.
Adding their voices to the movement, local rappers are saying what the streets have been shouting, while bringing their art and craft back to its roots, because rap was never just for fun as its foundations were built on civil activism and resistance. For those that may have missed some of the tracks released so far, below, we gathered a list of five songs, dropped over the past month, that address the frustrations, hopes, and contradictions driving Morocco’s youth-led movement.
DADA – ‘MGHRIBI KA33I’
KARTMAN – ‘GENZ212’
MORO – ‘MFM’
RBNS – ‘Génération Z’
Jntyyy – ‘Scarecrow’
Kero – ‘9ololo’
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