I recently spoke with a couple of members of Golden Mezwed, a mezwed band here in Manouba. You can read the article here and here. Mezwed is the primary musical genre here in Tunisia. Have a look at this video of and see why. Note how the musicstarts out slow but rises in speed and intensity as time passes.

Maghreb Voices
The Magical Mezwed Tour

Wanda Waterman
Volume 23 Issue 25 2015-06-19

“I think we’re about ready for a new feeling to enter music. I think that will come from the Arabic world.”
– Brian Eno

Meeting Gaddour
We encounter Abdelkadr, who is better known as Gaddour, at our local café, where we often see him coming and going. He’s a friendly guy with a lot of friends, but we don’t pay him much notice until we see him performing on television with a large mezwed ensemble, singing and playing bindir (a lap drum like the Irish bodhrán, but played with the hands) and dharbouka (an hourglass-shaped drum held between the thighs and also played with the hands).

We’re even more intrigued to discover that in 2007 he and his band performed at a music festival in Montreal . . . (Read the rest here and here.)