by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

To a fair portion of the Mirror’s readership, the word “medina” is associated uniquely with ’80s rap chap Tone-Loc. “A couple of sips of this love potion and she’ll be on your lap,” the loquacious Mr. Loc stated of his mysterious, foggy brew, ideally served funky and cold (with or without a twist of Rohypnol).

This was of course utter nonsense, wrung from the fevered imagination of an individual who would later play second fiddle to Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. To set the record straight, Medina is, first and foremost, a Saudi Arabian city of great historical importance to Islam. The informal “medina,” however, refers to the old, pre-colonial Arab quarters of many North African cities—walled and labyrinthine sectors impenetrable to automobiles (streets can be less than a metre wide in some places), teeming with cafés, mosques and all manner of markets and stalls.

The organizers of Festival Nuits d’Afrique aim to simulate a medina environment at the concerts of their off-season offshoot, le Festival de musique du Maghreb. The Maghreb, for your information and that of Tone-Loc, is the Western end of the Arab world—the Saharan states of Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, with their bookends Libya and Mauritania recently piling in under the heading.

The festival has enlisted two Rue Mont-Royal businesses, Kif-Kif La planète équitable and L’Original, to recreate as best they can the atmosphere of a medina in the confines of Kola Note. Keep a few bucks handy for the tempting selection of Maghrebi garments, jewellery, tea settings, handcrafted knick-knacks and narghiles (which you might call hookahs, hubbly-bubblies or waterpipes, and Tone-Loc no doubt calls a worthwhile purchase).

This mini-medina will be up and running at both of the festival’s concerts, two very different takes on the musical traditions—and possibilities—of the Maghreb. The first, entitled Gnawa du monde, has Moroccan Montrealer Nazir Bouchareb and his band Salaam (certainly familiar to followers of Arabic music in Montreal), joined by special guests.

Salaam’s bag is the gnawa tradition, the mystical Muslim trance action that finds its roots in the rhythms of Africa below the desert line, and its familiarity to Westerners in exploratory albums by Bill Laswell, Pharoah Sanders and Brian Jones. As it is, Salaam strive to make the gnawa trance style up-to-date and accessible, and that’s before they bring in West African djembe-thumper Aboulaye Koné and Brazilian reedman Marcelo Padre.

The other show, Baladi-raï dans la medina, is a very different affair. In charge are locals Syncop, who offer a vigorous fusion of hip hop, reggae and raï, the dominant Algerian pop-music style. They’re joined by a pair of Montreal-based raï crooners, Cheb Dino and Cheb Fayçal, as well as a gaggle of baladi dancers. Baladi, by the way, is better known to you and Tone-Loc as bellydancing.

Gnawa du monde is on Friday, March 17, Baladi-raï dans la medina on Saturday, March 18. Both shows at Kola Note, 9 p.m., $15 ($25 for both)

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