Author: Richie Troughton

Due to unprecedented demand The Master Musicians of Joujouka launch a second edition of their festival from 30^th May to 1^st June 2025.

Booking is open now for a second Master Musicians of Joujouka festival to be held in the village in 2025.

Following the original 23–25 May edition selling out in record time an additional three-day festival will take place in Joujouka from 30th May to 1st June, with guests leaving the village on 2nd June.

The Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival is recognised by the Guinness Book of Records as the smallest music festival in the world. It sees the Masters welcome a maximum of 50 guests to their homes and village in the Ahl Srif mountains of Morocco to immerse in their ancient Sufi trance music for three days and nights.

Visitors stay as guests in the homes of the Master Musicians and their families with the all-inclusive ticket price including meals, accommodation, plus pick up from nearest train station. Drop off is arranged by the organisers but, subject to destination, incurs a modest charge.

Performances are held at the Madrassa of the Master Musicians of Joujouka in the village.

Booking open now at the Festival page here

For more information email here

Following a successful appearance opening the 2023 Glastonbury Festival on the main Pyramid Stage, the Master Musicians of Joujouka also hosted two festivals in 2024 due to intense demand.

The group’s leader Ahmed El Attar said: “In a world with many troubles more and more people want to experience the tranquillity and healing Baraka of our music and our village. We welcome them to come and participate in this great revival.” 

The Master Musicians of Joujouka number over a dozen Masters and are aided by dancers including Boujeloud. The Boujeloud ritual pre-dates the Islam Sufi traditions and has been likened to the Rites of Pan, but for Joujouka it is an integral part of the Sufi tradition despite its animistic origins. 

“Playing trance-inducing music that has existed for centuries, the Master Musicians invite us to rural Morocco to experience it up close – complete with gods in goat skins” – read report in the Guardian here

Read reports from the May 2024 edition of the Master Musicians of Joujouka festival here

“A healing encounter” with the Master Musicians of Joujouka – read The Arts Desk report on June 2024 festival here

Master Musicians of Joujouka former promoter and lifelong friend Rikki Stein shares tracks from artists he has worked with in his music career.

Rikki Stein has just published his memoirs and in this latest article adds commentary and a video playlist of a selection of the artists he has worked with over six decades.

Rikki’s ‘Global Island Discs’ appear on Outside Left and highlight the diverse range of artists he has worked with.

From promoting Jimi Hendrix’s first European tour, to working with the Grateful Dead, managing Fela Kuti and a wide range of studio production and more, Rikki gives a visual dimension to his remarkable career.

Rikki’s memoirs, Moving Music – The Memoirs of Rikki Stein, published by Wordville, features astounding anecdotes, from his life spent living the dream and working with many of the 20^th century’s greatest artists.

This includes his decades of involvement with the Master Musicians of Joujouka.

Including two videos of the Master Musicians of Joujouka in his selection, Rikki said: “I found my way to Morocco and finished up on top of a small mountain; home to a tribe of musicians, dating back to the 14th century. I was so blown away by what, musically and culturally, was happening there that I tore up my ticket and stayed for two years. I talk about this extensively in my book, but here they are in all their glory. At the end of the seventies I returned to the village, got passports for everyone, bought a bus that was always breaking down and toured them around Europe for three months. A mixture of pain and pleasure as many such things are.”

He added: “I’m ending this musical journey, back in Morocco with the Master Musicians of Joujouka who were invited to animate the Dior Defilé, featuring 100 of the world’s top models in the grounds of an ancient palace outside Marrakech.”

Read the article in full at Outside Left

Moving Music – The Memoirs of Rikki Stein is available now from all good bookshops

Legendary music producer’s latest book offers an alternative music history and travelog looking at “how jazz, rhythm and blues and rock ‘n’ roll would never have happened if it weren’t for the notes and rhythms emanating from over the horizon”.

The latest book by legendary music producer Joe Boyd seeks out to explore in great detail the backstories of some of the most “extraordinary” musicians from around the world, including from Joujouka.

In And the Roots of Rhythm Remain, Boyd examines how “personalities, events and politics in places such as Havana, Lagos, Budapest, Kingston and Rio are as colourful and momentous as anything that took place in New Orleans, Harlem, Laurel Canyon or Liverpool”.

Boyd’s global study extends to Morocco, as the book includes a section on the Master Musicians of Joujouka, exploring times when the group performed for sultans in the 1400s, to visits of Brion Gysin and Brian Jones – and most recently to 2023’s Glastonbury festival opening set, “before Elton John, Lana Del Ray and Guns n’ Roses took their turns on stage”.

Boyd muses on the “music and ritual” of Joujouka and how the group’s sounds could be the closest thing to “knowing what a days-long party sounded like in Athens in the fifth century BCE”.

The book was recently launched in London with an In Conversation event at Foyles with Brian Eno talking to Boyd.

Eno said: “I doubt I’ll ever read a better account of the history and sociology of popular music than this one.”

At the event Boyd said: “A lot of the book is about connections. It’s about the way the music travels across oceans and across borders, in many, many different ways.”

Artists produced by Boyd include Nick Drake, Pink Floyd, R.E.M., Taj Mahal and Fairport Convention, with many of these experiences detailed in his previous book, the 2005 memoir White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s. As a film producer, his credits include Amazing Grace, Scandal, and Jimi Hendrix.

And the Roots of Rhythm Remain (published in the UK by Faber & Faber and in the US by Ze Books) is available now in all good bookshops