Music has all the time been a mirror of its time, expressing a shared international emotion that transcends borders and cultures. And with the world right now feeling chaotic, unsure, and undeniably unusual, that emotion has taken on a brand new type. In music and popular culture alike, the temper of the moment is outlined by a rising sense of weirdness.
At this cultural second, weirdness is being celebrated greater than ever, channeling the chaos, pleasure, and uncertainty of the world round us, taking issues deeper, making it extra actual and extra genuine than ever earlier than. It feels as if international tradition is spiraling down a gap, pulling everybody right into a larger sense of realness, no matter which will imply for every individual.
This new cultural power displays the id of a younger era that’s fed up with mediocrity and formalities, and is now chasing cultural expressions which might be distinctive, bizarre, and unapologetically genuine.
In North Africa and the Center East, the place between 38 and 50 % of the inhabitants are younger than 34 years outdated, the area couldn’t be extra vibrant, recent, or distinctive. It’s a place the place traits, musical genres, and artistic actions are continuously rising, whether or not within the streets or in hidden, tucked-away studios that few would ever bump into.
Adam Abdelkader Lenox, higher often called ZOUJ, is a French-Moroccan-American experimental sound producer primarily based in Berlin, who explores new, eccentric sounds and distinctive genres in his newest mixtape, Sabahu Al Kheir Men Zouj (Good Morning From Zouj, 2025). The mixtape is a patchwork of surprising collaborations and sonic experimentation, stretching from Casablanca to Berlin, Algiers to Beirut, Paris to Oujda.
Gathering tracks constructed round his technique of studying and experimenting with Raï, a type of Algerian folks music courting again to the Nineteen Twenties, the mixtape challenges the boundaries of the style, pushing it into unusual, recent, and distinctive territories, significantly via an exploration of the most recent underground wave of Raï unofficially dubbed “way-way.”
“The area is so younger that you may uncover a brand new underground style each three months; it’s simply buzzing on the market,” ZOUJ tells Egyptian Streets.
“Now I can lastly sleep realizing there’s a way-way rage-rap hyper-pop monitor that includes an artsy singer from Algeria, two different Arabes-de-France producers, and Beirut’s solely rage rapper, at the least for now.”
Chaotic, Younger and Bizarre
The method of making this mixtape was simply as chaotic and unpredictable because the music itself; a set of small encounters and tales by which ZOUJ immersed himself within the thrill of starting with a single pattern or method and watching it evolve.
What struck him most, nonetheless, was the key ingredient behind the “way-way” sound, which is a digital synthesizer from the early 2000s, the Yamaha A1000. After monitoring one down in rural Morocco, Adam introduced it again to Germany, making it the heartbeat of his manufacturing course of.
One of the best ways to explain the “way-way” sound is that it feels born from an underground rave, the place a rush of feelings floods your senses, transferring too quick to understand within the second. It is just when the music ends that you may lastly take all of it in, piece by piece.
Very similar to the rise of electronica within the early 2000s, it embodies a chaotic sound that mirrors the turbulence of the digital age, the place devices are continuously pushed previous the boundaries of what we predict sound will be.
The early 2000s have resurfaced as certainly one of 2025’s strongest waves of nostalgia; a pivotal period that marked the transition from analog tape to digital audio workstations (DAWs) and software program synths, ushering within the lush, artificial textures that outlined digital music manufacturing.
This nostalgic revival is way from random, however it reflects a generational impulse to revisit the roots of the digital revolution. From flip telephones to pixelated screens, the early constructing blocks of the digital world are re-emerging, as right now’s youth look again to know how deeply expertise has turn into a part of their on a regular basis lives, and the way the longer term can look past it.
Tapping into this wave of nostalgia, ZOUJ’s mixtape cowl contains a flip telephone and pixelated screens, that are visible nods to a world cultural second, whereas grounding it within the native soundscape of North Africa. Via his exploration of early digital synthesizers from that period, he revives their forgotten potential, recycling them into one thing new, alive, and distinctly recent.
Step one was uncovering the essence of the “way-way” sound, which, to ZOUJ, seems like a post-internet evolution of Raï.
“It sounds spontaneous; they’ll usually launch a recording straight from a reside efficiency at a cabaret,” he says. “It provides me nostalgia for an period I’ve by no means lived in, for music that by no means existed earlier than, however the spontaneity, the humor, and the context by which it lives make me really feel the identical approach I do after I take heed to a punk file.”
As he dug deeper into understanding its basis, ZOUJ found that one instrument sits on the coronary heart of the style: the Yamaha A1000. He likens it to what the guitar is for rock, and with out it, the “way-way” sound wouldn’t exist.
But, the synthesizer is so uncommon that just a few have entry to it, making it all of the extra elusive and distinctive.
“As I used to be trying to find one, I noticed that producers are virtually hoarding them,” he provides.
One second, specifically, encapsulates the chaotic great thing about the mixtape. Whereas in Morocco, ZOUJ launched into a hunt for the Yamaha A1000. What began as a simple plan to file with an area synthesizer participant spiraled right into a whirlwind of missed calls and last-minute studio commitments.
Flights have been modified, and hopes have been repeatedly raised and dashed. The native synthesizer would vanish, then reappear out of nowhere, usually simply earlier than his six-hour cabaret units.
Between poolside swims in half-abandoned accommodations and taxi rides via rain-soaked Marrakesh streets, ZOUJ’s mission teetered between comedy and chaos.
It was a short encounter, but it additionally displays simply how difficult it’s to get one’s palms on this new musical style, virtually as difficult because the work of an archaeologist.
It was via this sort of musical archaeology that ZOUJ actually bought to the center of the brand new genres and underground scenes throughout North Africa.
“Cue me reshuffling my complete life, from flights to lodge bookings and maxing out my bank card, as if I have been starring in a actuality TV present,” he jokes.
Experimenting and Collaborating
Characterised by a daring, unbiased, and playful spirit, the mixtape’s weirdness lies in its untamed power, formed by underground rave tradition and distilled into gloriously messy, chaotic dance music.
It steers away from typical radio hits or mainstream membership sounds, whereas staying true to Rai’s uncooked, rebellious, and richly layered roots. Going a lot deeper and realer than the common radio hit, the lyrics navigate a mixture of feelings that aren’t simply sentimental or over-the-top, however usually lean into sarcasm and irony too.
Additionally it is a sonic collage that introduces recent sounds and boundary-pushing artists: Losez from Algiers, identified for his musical innovation and experimental lure music; Syqlone from Paris, who transforms North African sounds into experimental digital hybrids; and Laï, one of many first voices to emerge from Lebanon’s rage-rap scene.
After mastering the basics of the “way-way” sound, ZOUJ was prepared to interrupt the foundations. Over time, he had constructed a toolkit of expertise that gave him the arrogance to experiment instinctively, with out overthinking.
“Experimenting, to me, is simply asking your self ‘what if’ after which giving it a strive,” he says. “The celebrities aligned and I managed to carry collectively a very candy group of gifted artists who’re all the time up for doing one thing bizarre, so how might I say no?”
The sub-genre appears to wrestle with itself, folding inward and difficult listeners to rethink the whole lot they assume they find out about what makes a “hit.”
“The web is a superb place,” ZOUJ provides, noting how the digital revolution made room for recent and unbiased sounds.
After years of measuring success via streams and mass enchantment, this mixtape hints at a refined shift within the musical panorama, the place worth is now not in chasing recognition however in looking for out essentially the most uncommon, real, and boundary-pushing sounds.