In modern times, Moroccan Jewry was divided between the more urban Jews of the Arabic-speaking coastal area, many of whom were descended from exiles from Spain, and those of the Berber (or Amazigh) areas in the mountainous hinterlands. Samuel Torjman Thomas explains how the combined influences of these two Jewish cultures created the distinctive elements of Moroccan Jewish music:
When people talk about Moroccan Jewish music, connections to the Arab-Andalusian past are often mentioned. Piyyutim or Hebrew [liturgical] poems by Spanish Golden Age poets—Judah Halevi, Solomon ibn Gabirol, Moses ibn Ezra—permeate the revered Moroccan bakkashot singing tradition, the canon of Tisha b’Av kinnot [dirges], and High Holy Day liturgy. The works of several well-known Moroccan paytanim or liturgical poets . . . are bursting with traces of Sephardi poetics. Instruments like the oud, darbuka, nay, and violin are prominent in every ensemble.
While these elements of classical Arab-Andalusian musical culture constitute an important marker of Moroccan identity, much more could be said of the Amazigh influences. For starters, elements of Amazigh musical culture still pervade the cantorial practices of Moroccan Jewry. Perhaps the most apparent musical element illuminating an Amazigh past is found in the Moroccan ḥazzan’s approach to rhythm. An incessant, driving twelve-beat cycle has found its way into many places during synagogue services.
For example, during the kedushah prayer, or for one of the many performances of kaddish, the ḥazzan regularly taps out the rhythm. Listen closely and you’ll hear the characteristic tek, tek-dum. Even when a ḥazzan lets loose on a melody clearly borrowed from . . . the classical Arab-Andalusian genre, or borrows a more recent composition from Israel, it is quite common to hear the pulse of the Amazigh. But not only Amazigh rhythms: melodies borrowed from cha’abi or folksongs work their way into the prayers, unearthing the influence of Morocco’s Amazigh foundations even more.
Read more on Sephardi Ideas Monthly: https://www.facebook.com/notes/sephardi-ideas-monthly/samuel-thomas-the-virtues-of-the-shleuh-celebrating-the-amazigh-contribution-to-/519305158262312