2023-06-11 12:13:01
TUNIS: Khaled blows two horns to tune his mezoued, a kind of bagpipe. In Tunisia, this instrument, also a musical genre of folklore, came out of the ghetto where it was confined to conquer musicians from horizons as distant as hip-hop or jazz.
The mezoued “must be made from natural elements”, explains to AFP Khaled ben Khemis, a 51-year-old craftsman who has practiced this profession for 30 years in his workshop in the north of Tunis, showing the bag – reservoir air– goatskin and wooden parts.
When certain manufacturers use plastic for the reeds – small flutes where to play the notes – on an instrument which can cost up to 1,000 dinars (300 euros), the craftsman protests: “they do not have the soul of those made of reed”.
Historians, almost unanimously, trace the appearance of the mezoued in Tunisia to the beginning of the 20th century.
But the Tunisian bagpipe has evolved enormously: “before we played without just note and we made it in a hurry”, recalls the craftsman, filing the two cow horns connected to the reeds, from which the final sound will come out. .
Bad image
“It was a musical genre whose reputation was bad, as were those who played it,” Noureddine Kahlaoui, a very popular artist following 40 years of career who defines himself as “an activist” of the mezoued, told AFP.
This music has suffered from a sulphurous reputation associating it with alcohol, drugs and prison, where many songs were composed.
“Criminals and criminals on the run are often found by the authorities in mezoued evenings”, underlines the septuagenarian singer.
The pieces also address “daring subjects criticizing society, politics, immigration and racism”, analyzes Rachid Cherif, researcher in musicology.
Traditionally, mezoued evenings are organized in popular, even poor and marginalized neighborhoods, in particular on the occasion of weddings.
Song lyrics can be rude and resented by families, sometimes sparking riots and fights at parties.
All this explains why the mezoued was, until the 1990s, censored by public television channels.
Folk artists then undertook to restore its image with the general public and the authorities.
In July 1991, “Nouba”, a performance that mixed folk, popular and Sufi music (mystical current of Islam) marked a fundamental step in the rehabilitation of the mezoued.
The show was hosted in the Roman amphitheater in Carthage and its subsequent broadcast on television helped the mezoued gain wide recognition.
Even if some reluctance persists, since in 2022, the officials of the Municipal Theater of Tunis refused a mezoued show, deemed unworthy of this prestigious institution.
jazz and rap
“Despite the criticism, we have worked so that this picturesque heritage can progress”, underlines Mr. Kahlaoui, happy with “the dazzling evolution” of a repertoire which now also evokes love and family.
For the researcher Rachid Cherif, “the mezoued occupies a prominent place in the history of Tunisian popular music” because of its identity foundation. It “consolidates the idea of belonging to a nation, an ethnic group and a culture”.
More recently, a new generation of musicians has begun to take an interest in mezoued and to mix it with urban music such as rap or world music. Disparate universes that give birth to creations freed from clichés and fixed standards.
Montassar Jebali plays the mezoued in several jazz and hip-hop groups.
“Thanks to what I learned during my studies, I understood what might be done with this instrument”, says the 32-year-old flutist, specifying that the mezoued is not yet taught at the Higher Institute of Music of Tunisia from which he graduated in Arabic music.
“I used my academic knowledge to find which instrument he went well with,” adds Mr. Jebali, whose concerts and those of other musicians are very popular with young Tunisians.
“The mezoued is gaining ground”, believes the artist, convinced that this music will break through internationally, “perhaps not tomorrow, but the day following tomorrow”.
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