(Photo from Facebook)
By Nayera Yasser
In a continent embracing several cultures and civilisations lie two quite distinctive nations. On paper, Egypt and Morocco speak more or less the same language, share the same religion, and share few geographical and climate facts.
However, the two countries literally present the utter difference between east and west. Moreover, any common citizen will likely face problems understanding his counterpart.
The Masterpeace organisation is an international network that believes in the peaceful power of music. With offices in several key cities around the world, the organisation throws annual musical festivals, Masterpeace Playlist, that focuses on closing the distance between nations.
This year Masterpeace turned towards both Egypt and Morocco with the aim to bring these two cities closer. Over the course of three weeks, several musical nights will be held, in parallel, in Cairo and Marrakesh.
To overcome the language barrier, each city will stick to its slang. However, all the participating bands will be working with one theme, tackling the same topics.
“Most of the talents participating are underground artists, as we support underground talents who play their own music/ lyrics and are always keen on showing a new way of music through their performance,” explained project manager Ahmed Mohran.
(Photo from Facebook)
The organisation opens its door to all interested talents through its website, as any band can fill in the online application and upload a video of their music in order to register. Nevertheless, the bands are selected based on several basic rules that are standardised worldwide by Masterpeace.
“Participants should focus on a range of different themes in peace-building, such as conflict resolution, cultural collaboration, non-violence, and the like,” Mohran added. “Moreover, all participants’ songs require a fusion of music and at least one musical instrument should be played during the performance.”
More importantly, each and every song is reviewed by the organisation to insure that it meets the festival’s essence. “All tracks should not contain any content that indicates violence, racism, intolerance, discrimination and the likes,” said Mohran.
As the event’s date approaches, the list of participating bands is being finalised rapidly. Project’s manager, Ahmed Mohran, declared three confirmed names, which are May Abdel Aziz, Nour Emam, and Looperia Project.
The festival welcomes not only all the suitable artists, it is also wide open to everyone to attend. The musical nights require no tickets, as they are organised for awareness rather than financial profit.
The event is expected to start on 17 April, and it will take place on the roof top of The District co-working space in Maadi, Cairo.
Last year’s event was in Amsterdam and combined several international artists who came from conflicting areas. Some of its key performers were Asala from Syria, Oleta Adams from the US, Baaba Maal from Senegal, and many more.
The annual fiesta also witnessed historic meetings between nations-in-conflict, such as Russia and Ukraine, as well as Sudan and South Sudan.
This one of a kind concept manifests the true power of music, and the chance of ending everlasting conflicts for the sake of peace.
“No matter what your background is or nationality, you will always understand music. Music is an international language of peace,” said Mohran.
