Guedra Guedra
Images
The sound of Guedra Guedra is a dazzling compound of visionary electronics and musical traditions drawn from across the continent of Africa
Guedra Guedra
The name Guedra Guedra refers to a Moroccan traditional dance from Saharan communities, and a type of cooking pot that can be adapted into a drum by stretching a leather skin over the top of it. Abdellah was born and raised in Casablanca, Morocco and today lives between that city and Marrakech. When he was growing up, he was a bassist and a drummer in various bands, playing everything from metal to reggae and rock. He started to get interested in electronic music and dub when he heard producers like Aisha Kandisha’s Jarring Effects, Muslimgauze and Badawi, all artists that fused parts of Moroccan traditional music with machine sounds.
Abdellah produced two releases under the name Dubosmium, an electronic dub project, and started a parallel practice as a sound artist, using samples and field recordings he’d made while travelling around Morocco, Egypt, Mauritania, Senegal and other African countries. “I would record storytelling from different people to think about collective memory. It’s a way to reflect together on our history and identity, and to bring forth a shared knowledge that is not imposed from above, but built with those who live it,” he says. “From my archive, I then tried to create some sound pieces, installations and visuals.” Abdellah went on to reconfigure his sound as Guedra Guedra, aiming to preserve African musical practices by mixing parts of his field recordings with cutting-edge beats.
On his Son of Sun EP (2020) and debut album Vexillology (2021), released via On The Corner Records, Guedra Guedra used bass-heavy rhythms from dubstep, footwork and hip-hop, adding sampled voices, percussion and instruments with environmental found sounds like bird song and crashing ocean surf. Vexillology went on to receive glowing praise from Mixmag, The Guardian and Resident Advisor.
On his second album MUTANT, released on Smugglers Way (August 2025), the Moroccan producer (real name Abdellah M. Hassak) sculpts irresistible rhythms and sounds from his analogue synths and drum machines, blending them with percussive fragments, field recordings from Morocco, Tanzania, Guinea and more, gathered while travelling across the vast landmass.
MUTANT explores themes of identity, Pan-Africanism, Afrofuturism, and decolonization, bridging the musical heritage of the continent with elements of techno, bass music and dub. “I created something energetic, where I could find my freedom to compose,” Abdellah says. “I wanted to have a cultural sound that explored innovation with African and diasporic music alongside the vibes of rhythm and the vibes of bass.” The songs on MUTANT celebrate the wealth of African polyrhythmic forms and also challenge how this richness has long been marginalized by technological tools and systems of thought shaped by Western logic and models of standardization. “Mainstream music production tools struggle to capture the depth and sensitivity of non-Western cultural expressions,” says Abedellah. “They often render nonlinear rhythms, meaningful silences, and community-driven dynamics from other cultures invisible. Decolonizing music and technology, therefore, means questioning the very foundations of these tools, and rethinking their design so they can host other worldviews.”
MUTANT is a revolutionary record, an ingenious meld of the organic and the electronic. While Guedra Guedra’s samples and field recordings celebrate the diverse folk music history and heritage of Africa, his drum programming and synth work across the album reinterpret these sounds for dance floors. As Abdellah says, he’s “researching rhythm, researching sound, researching people. I said, ‘I need to learn more about African culture.’ I’m learning at the same time as I’m doing this music.”