For my two cents, this is a great movie! I saw it last year at the Atlanta Hip Hop Film Festival where it took home the award for best feature length documentary. If you have a chance go see this film. It follows two guys as they try to put together the first hip hop festival in Morocco. Several well known Moroccan hip hop acts are also followed closely and it really gives you a great sense of how their culture and hip hop culture butt heads. Some very dope music as well (which I have yet to track down…).

Here is a great article about the film: http://www.worldhiphopmarket.com/blog/?p=30

Here’s an excerpt of the review I did for the ATL hip hop film fest: http://www.worldhiphopmarket.com/blog/?p=24

“Finally we watched a very well produced film called I Love Hip Hop in Morocco. The film followed DJ Key and Josh the American as they spent six months planning a free three day hip hop festival, in three cities, on three days, called I Love Hip Hop in Morocco. Each city was headlined by a well known local group, and two were heavily featured: H-Kayne and Fnaire, both groups who rapped in Arabic, as well as Brown Fingaz, a Marrakech MC who raps in English, and Mot de Passe, a male-female duo who rap in French.

The conservative Muslim culture of Morocco was presented as even more oppressive than Turkey’s. Two topics you were never to speak about were religion and the king. There was no freedom of speech. Cursing was frowned upon. At one point, several of the rappers seemed seriously worried when their friend was speaking negatively about the king and the government. One promoter told a story of 14 rock musicians who were imprisoned for a year simply for performing hard rock music. Rappers repeated made statements that the common people in Morocco did not have anything. They said they write raps in double meanings and hidden messages to avoid government problems. However, they claimed that if they had money like American artists, they would probably also rap about girls.

Perhaps the strongest moment of the film came from Fati Show, the female half of Mot de Passe. People yelled “you should be ashamed” when she walked down the street with her rhyme partner. And at the show, the crowd booed her when she walked on stage. She told them she didn’t care, then proceeded to tear up the beat with her lyrics. And the crowd came to its feet and cheered her loudly when she was done. Effecting change, fo sho.’

Peace.