Morocco’s indigenous people,  Berbers, provide the cultural firmament that gives the music a unique rustic flavor. 

For thousands of years, the Berbers have populated the coastal plains, desert, and mountains, and have incorporated the rich variety of musical influences brought from the Middle East. Folk music performs ritualistic, celebratory, and social duties as well as providing a vehicle for broadcasting the news to generations of rural dwellers who might never have learned to read or write. In many regions, traveling Entertainers , bring news of current affairs to the weekly souks. In small ensembles, they sing with accompaniment on handcrafted instruments including double-sided duff tambourines and the one-stringed fiddle or rabab. Similar to a singing Telegram or Newspaper.
 The context is usually celebratory and as such there is a rich stream of folkloric dance styles accompanying the music. In the High Atlas, villagers in local costume will gather around an open fire for a dance called the avouch; in the Middle Atlas it’s the ahidous, where women will dance shoulder to shoulder in a large circle around the seated male musicians who play hand-held frame drums called bendir and ney flutes.