There is no single style or element which defines "North African music"; the region's kaleidoscope of musical ideas and forms and traditions and innovations doesn't hold still, and resists all but the most superficial division into unidimensional categories. Partitioning by nationality, by classical/folk, by elite/peasant, by commercial/non-commercial, by 'pure'/'fusion' --each is an unprofitable straitjacket.
The items here are a bit of this and a bit of that and some of the other too. Any single example probably contains complexities beyond an outsider's power to resolve, and I can only hint at the dimensions (I'm no expert --just an interested observer). But let's start with some samples, and see where an attempt at narrative gets us:
The song has to do with the sufferings that accompany war, and is I think sung in Berber (the language of the people who were there before the Phoenecians, the Romans, the Vandals, the Arabs...). The musical elements are end-blown flute (very similar to the ney, maybe even identical), a frame drum with a snare, and a distinctive style of singing. In most Muslim countries women are not usually public performers, or are not seen as entirely 'respectable' when they do take such a public role (there are some exceptions). Aïchi was born in Algeria, but now lives in France.
Mandolin is not a 'traditional' North African instrument, but does show up in a number of settings and here clarifies for ears unfamiliar with the non-tempered (or differently-tempered) scales of North African and Arabic music the refinements of a modern version of classical Andalusian music --exported to North Africa with the fall of the Moorish kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula, which were finally expelled completely in 1492. There's a vast repertoire of classical nawba, with regional variants.
The form is "pop-raï", which originated in Oran (Algeria) from an earlier form of low-life music. This tune was an enormous hit about 10 years ago. Most raï is a studio creation: the singers are recorded, then the instrumental parts are overlayed through the magic of multitracking. Islamic fundamentalists have made Algeria too hot for raï singers, most of whom have moved to France. The lyrics include references to sex, alcohol, drugs... and attitude.
How to convince you of the significance of this one? It stands for a process of assimilation of foreigners in France, in an in-yer-face kind of way that right-wing French find deeply offensive. The title itself is a provocation: 'Rhorho' is a pejorative term for 'Arabs' (alluding to a phoneme that Arabic has and French doesn't, made quite far back in the throat). Here are the lyrics:Chkoune liguelle? [who has said?]
Les Kahlouches [blacks] c'est louche
Chkoune liguelle?
Les Rhorhos y'en a trop
Chkoune liguelle?
Les Kahlouches c'est louche
Chkoune liguelle?
Les Rhorhos y'en a trop
Asmaïni ya ghouya (listen to me, brother)
C'est la RHORHOMANIE, la RHORHOMANIE
Danse d'aujourd'hui, yeah danse d'aujourd'hui
JAMES BROWN walla [I swear] ça donne
JIMMY CLIFF ghir mel [is better than] kif
JIMMY HENDRIX ghir mel fix
OTIS REDDING ça swing
JOE TEX ghir mel sexe
OUM KELTHOUM ghir mel noum [sleep]
Asmaïni ya ghouya
C'est la RHORHOMANIE, la RHORHOMANIE, la RHORHOMANIE, danse d'aujourd'hui
Ou kaïne tène Raï [There's also Raï]
Maâ [with] FADILA ou BELLEMOU
Wallah wallah c'est fou
JAMES BROWN wallah ça donne
JIMMY CLIFF ghir mel kif
JIMMY HENDRIX ghir mel fix
OUM KELTHOUM ghir mel noum
JOE TEX ghir mel sexe
OTIS REDDING ça swing
WILSON PICKETT ça pète
RHORHOMANIE, c'est la RHORHOMANIE, danse d'aujourd'hui
Arouah an'ta ghouya [come on brother]
Danser, danser avec nous
Sur la RHORHOMANIE danse d'aujourd'hui
Arouah arouah
Smaâ [listen] l'oud c'est very good
Smaâ l'oud is very good
Arouah
Chkoune liguelle
Les Kahlouches c'est louche
Et les Rhorhos y'en a trop
Asmaâ c'est la rhorho rhorho rhorhomanie
RHORHOMANIE c'est la danse d'aujourd'hui
Asmaâ les youyous c'est fou
A recurrent element has to do with the connection across the Strait of Gibraltar, to the historical and modern musics of Andalusia. The next two give some hints of the connection to North African musics:
You can hear intimations of Spanish music here and there in this one, by an Algerian oud virtuoso
There's quite a variety of fusion material, in this case Moroccan/Arabic with Catalonian
A more 'Middle Eastern' fusion: Hassan Erraji is Moroccan, and the tune has Turkish roots
Anouar Brahem is a Tunisian oud virtuoso, here stretching the classical approach to the oud
Beyond any specific tradition, this one is technically astounding: double stops up onto the body of the oud, and a rhythmic control that's just amazing. The accompanying instrument is a thumb piano, not a North African instrument ordinarily.
The harplike instrument heard alone at the beginning [ardin] is closely related to subSaharan instruments; the other is electric guitar (!), but played in the style of tidinit, another Sahelian instument. the song apears to be about infatuation with someone named Monnina.
The Gnawi were Bambara, brought to Morocco as slaves, after a 16th century conquest of Timbuktu by the Moroccans. Their rhythmically complex musical forms were adopted by practitioners of mystical Islam ['sufi' is a general term]. This is trance music of Muslim brotherhoods, and features the sintir (a one-string 'bass' with Sahelian parallels) and darabukka --the quintessential Arab goblet drum.
Another Muslim brotherhood, 'gnaoua' in origins. this music was "discovered" and written about by Paul Bowles, and in recent years has been taken up by world music people.
Starts with ululation (often found in North African women's music) --sound of a harvest dance from one of the Sahara oases. This is a "folkloric" recording (from the 1960s I think), with a semi-professional troupe.
A Moroccan/German fusion band, recorded in Morocco, but marketed to the European worldbeat audience
Aisha Kandisha takes some explaining: she's a spirit who possesses people, well known to all Moroccans --"a contagious psychosis", in the words of Paul Bowles. The band are all Moroccans, though they sometimes have hip Western musicians sitting in. Pretty powerful stuff.
One of the founders of "pop-raï", he's the trumpet in this slightly old-style number
Recorded in Tunisia in the 1920's, this one features a piano tuned to play 'Arabic' music and a tambour, and illustrates the fact that 'fusion' is not a recent invention.
A popular Moroccan singer of the 20s and 30s
This and the two which follow are from an effort to reconstruct the instruments and musical practise of 12th-15th century Andalusian music, undertaken under the direction of early music maven Carlos Paniagua