U-Cef

U-CEF - Short Biography
By Andy Morgan.

Clandestinos have to travel light. There's little space in their kit bags for anything other than hopes, dreams, memories and music. That was pretty much all U-cef, aka Moulay Youssef Adel, had to declare when he arrived in the USA from his native Morocco back in the late 1980s.

Born in Rabat, the Moroccan Capital, U-cef grew up with the riches of Morocco's traditional music ringing in his ears, from the raw trance of gnawa to the refined sophistication of andalusi and melhoun, from the challenging protest poetry of the Morocco's new-breed of pop agitators like Nass El Ghiwane and Lem Chaheb to the gutsy roots music of the high Atlas. But very early on, foreign sounds entered the mix, starting with the lush orchestrated scores of Bollywood and Bruce Lee movies and moving through The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zep to disco and funk. Thanks to his music loving uncles, U-cef started learning the guitar before moving on to become a drummer. His group Quark dreamed of achieving the musical sophistication of heroes Return to Forever and Weather Report. But the contemporary Moroccan music scene simply didn't nurture that kind of ambition, favouring bands who were happy to just play covers in the ballrooms of swanky hotels. Emigration became the only option.