In its 2018 introduction, naarfr.com described itself as a postcultural collective. The phrase sounds abstract until you look at the work it published. Its pages brought Moroccan photographers, visual artists, and rappers into conversation with musicians from Europe and the United States. The point was not to place every artist in the same category. It was to give artists working in different places a more equal chance to be seen and heard.
The collective said it wanted to address the uneven competition artists face around the world. That is a useful way to read its archive. Talent does not travel on equal terms. Some artists have established media networks around them; others have to build an audience across borders before an interviewer even calls. naarfr responded with profiles and interviews that paid attention to the people behind the work. By 2019, it had also announced a concert tour featuring Moroccan rap acts.
An Editorial Idea With Specific Artists Behind It
The range of names on naarfr.com can look surprising at first. An interview with Moroccan artist Meriem Bennani sits in the same archive as pieces on Albert Hammond Jr, Christopher Owens, Jaakko Eino Kalevi, and The Garden. There are also features on Weyes Blood and Moses Sumney. These are not all artists from one scene, and that is part of the site’s character. naarfr’s stated belief was that cultures are equal, even when the conditions artists work under are not.
That belief comes through most clearly in the subjects it chose to discuss. Take Karim El Maktafi, the Moroccan-Italian photographer featured in November 2018. His project Hayati deals with a personal question: how to understand an identity shaped by two strong cultural ties. The naarfr introduction presents him as someone seeking a balance between those sides and thinking about what it means to belong to the second generation. His background is not a bit of color added to a photography story. It is connected to the work itself.
The February 2018 feature on Meriem Bennani offers another angle. Bennani is a Moroccan artist based in New York, and the site spoke with her while she had exhibitions in Dubai and in her adopted city. The introduction points to the women portrayed in her work as a topic of conversation. In a few details, you get a sense of the territory naarfr wanted to cover: artists whose lives and work cannot be neatly filed under a single country, and whose subjects deserve more attention than a quick label.
That does not mean every naarfr article was about identity. The archive also follows songwriting, performance, records, and the choices artists make. Its profile of Weyes Blood, the project of Natalie Mering, connects the beauty of her shows and music with her spiritual outlook. The Moses Sumney feature looks beyond his brief appearance at the Oscars alongside Sufjan Stevens, touching on his childhood between cultures and the long process of making his music. The common thread is curiosity about how an artist got to the work in front of us.
Moroccan Rap Was Central, Not a Side Note
Moroccan rap gives naarfr’s editorial purpose a sharper focus. Its September 2018 feature on Issam introduces him as a free-thinking figure in Moroccan trap, drawn to arty sounds and videos. That description matters because it makes room for his own taste and visual decisions. He is presented as an artist shaping a particular approach, not as a stand-in for an entire national scene.
Shayfeen received similar attention earlier that year. The duo’s members, Shobee and Small X, were described as open-minded and forward-looking, qualities the site linked to their early distinction within Moroccan rap. The focus is on what they were making and how they thought about it. For readers unfamiliar with the scene, a profile like that gives them actual people and creative choices to follow. For readers who already know Shayfeen, it treats their work as worth discussing on its own terms.
The site’s interest was not limited to Moroccan acts. A feature on Laylow, for example, looks at a French rapper building a distinct world across Mercy and Digitalova. Putting that interview in the same archive as pieces on Issam and Shayfeen lets readers follow different rap artists without assuming their scenes are interchangeable. They can notice a shared interest in visual identity while still hearing each artist’s particular direction.
- Karim El Maktafi: Photography and Hayati opened a conversation about Moroccan-Italian identity and the second generation.
- Meriem Bennani: Her feature connected an international exhibition schedule with questions about the women in her art.
- Issam: The interview treated his artistic instincts and music videos as part of his place in Moroccan trap.
- Shayfeen: The profile focused on Shobee and Small X as artists with their own ideas about where Moroccan rap could go.
Read together, these pieces show what made naarfr more specific than a general culture site. It followed artists across countries, but kept returning to the details that distinguish one person’s work from another’s. A photographer’s search for balance, a visual artist’s subjects, and a rapper’s taste in videos are different stories. Giving each one space is a practical expression of the collective’s stated aim.
There is a useful contrast in the broader interview list, too. Albert Hammond Jr talked about an improvised trip to Morocco as well as his music. Christopher Owens brought a history that included songwriting and modeling for Hedi Slimane and Yves Saint Laurent. Jaakko Eino Kalevi discussed an album and shared personal anecdotes. The Garden’s profile introduced twins whose lives involved records, modeling, and live performances. The archive did not ask every artist the same cultural question. It followed the material each person brought to the conversation.
From Interviews to the SAFAR Tour
In February 2019, naarfr.com announced the SAFAR Tour, a series of concerts in European countries headlined by Moroccan rap acts Shayfeen and Madd. It was a notable extension of the site’s work. An interview can introduce an artist to someone who has never heard their music. A concert puts that artist in front of listeners in a different way, with the sound and performance carrying the introduction.
The choice of headliners also fits the earlier coverage. Shayfeen had appeared on the site in April 2018, when the focus was on the duo’s place in Moroccan rap and the thinking of Shobee and Small X. Announcing a European tour with Shayfeen and Madd the following year showed naarfr taking an interest in how Moroccan acts could reach audiences beyond their home scene. The announcement alone does not tell us how the tour went, so it is worth keeping the claim modest: it shows what the collective set out to organize.
That distinction matters when talking about a project built around unequal access. It is easy to say that artists need visibility. It is harder to point to what that means in practice. naarfr’s archive offers one answer through sustained attention: interview an artist, name the work, and let readers encounter the person’s actual interests. The SAFAR Tour announcement offers another: create a setting where audiences in European countries can hear Moroccan rappers perform. These are different efforts, but they respond to the same concern.
What stays with me about naarfr is how concrete its best examples are. El Maktafi’s Hayati is not just about being between places; it is his first project and part of an ongoing search. Bennani was working between exhibitions in Dubai and New York when the site featured her. Issam’s videos belong in a discussion of his music, not in a separate conversation about image. Shayfeen’s members have names, ideas, and a role in their scene. Those details keep the collective’s mission from becoming a slogan.
The archive covers a particular stretch of time, with many of the cited features appearing in 2018 and the SAFAR Tour announcement following in 2019. It does not need to stand for every artist or every cultural exchange to be meaningful. It shows an editorial project trying to widen the conversation while staying close to the work: Moroccan rap alongside international indie music, photography alongside visual art, and interviews alongside a plan for live shows. That is the clearest way to understand naarfr. It was interested in who gets heard, and it gave readers specific artists to listen to.