It was after escaping to Tangier that I discovered Rouicha.  I was sojourning in the Hotel de Paris, venturing out into the evening streets only to watch the jalaba’d men walking hand-in-hand down the avenue while the kids hawked contraband $1 marloboro reds from tea salon to salon.  After a few days, they knew to leave me alone.  I  would venture out to the outskirts of town on my thousand dollar Seattle-bought Bianchi Volpe by day, finding refuge in the mint tea cliffs of the slums overlooking the deep blue Mediterranean waters by eve, only to return to pick up a  tape each night from the local music shop down the street. They quickly learned my tastes, and I would steal away after a seamless transaction in the late hours into my hotel room playing Gnaoua, Rai, and classic Berber hits as a result of merely being there.  But it was all Rouicha, all the time.  Nobody plays the turtle hide quite that way.

Gnaoua isn’t bad, but a bit African for my tastes.

It was only when flying through the Algerian border in my over-rented Land Rover digging deep into the Sahara (and eventually running randomly into old pal Brahim in Rissani) that I was properly introduced between oases by hired hand Abdullah to Cheba Maria, the mistress of Rai.