In Conversation | Oum Reimagines Moroccan Jazz and Soul on Hew New Album ‘DIALDDAR’

If you asked any Moroccan—and I mean any Moroccan—to name a homegrown jazz and soul artist, the answer would almost always be Oum.

Since the early 2000s, she’s built a sound that bridges Salif Keïta’s lineage and Nina Simone’s depth, constantly reinventing her sonic identity without ever losing authenticity. Born Oum El Ghait Benessahraoui, the artist fuses soul, jazz, hip‑hop, Hassani, Gnawa, and world music into a style that feels thoroughly modern yet deeply rooted. Whether it’s folkloric instrumentation, regional Moroccan aesthetics, or intricately woven jewelry, she leans into tradition without styling it as exotic spectacle.

Raised between Casablanca and Marrakech, she studied architecture in Rabat before trading blueprints for the stage. Her debut album, Lik’Oum (2009) followed by Sweerty (2012) cemented her as a warm, magnetic voice in Morocco’s nayda wave, a youth-led cultural awakening blending contemporary genres with traditional sounds. The albums were praised for their spontaneous fusion of indigenous rhythms and Western soul. With The Soul of Morocco (2013), she expanded her role into a ‘soul‑singer‑with‑roots’, linking North Africa and Europe through mood and melody.

Now, DIALDDAR (2026) arrives as a deliberate homecoming: a 10‑track, 36‑minute album that reimagines Moroccan rhythms and spiritual traditions through a contemporary jazz‑soul lens. Each record in her catalog reflects evolving influences and growing political awareness, but on DIALDDAR, she leans hardest into Moroccan folklore—especially stories that center women—without flattening them into aesthetic window dressing.

Released in February, the album unfolded alongside a Ramadan tour across Morocco that later crossed into Europe. ‘Ramadan shifts everything’, Oum says to Complex MENA, sitting in the afterglow of her Rabat show. She performed at the famous Renaissance Hall, Rabat’s go-to stage for all local stars. Backed by an all-women band, the low-lit, melody-rich set carried a quiet catharsis, playing out like a love declaration.

‘The way people listen, the way they receive… it becomes softer, more open’, she says. ‘On stage, it feels less like performing and more like sharing a state’.

Complex MENA caught up with Oum in the afterglow of her Rabat show, stepping into her newest ‘DAR’ (Arabic for house). The album moves with femininity, intimacy, and resilience, less about a physical space and more about what home holds in Arab cultures: belonging, memory, and the quiet strength of women shaping both its walls and its stories.

Complex MENA: Your work feels deeply rooted in Morocco without ever trying to explain or perform it. How do you navigate that balance when speaking to an international audience?

Oum: I don’t really think of Moroccanness as something I need to present or explain. It’s not a layer I add; it’s the ground I stand on. The language, the silences, even the way I approach rhythm. It all comes from there, naturally. I trust that if something is deeply lived, it can be felt beyond words.

Complex MENA: With this album, there’s a sense of evolution rather than reinvention. What were you careful to preserve, and what were you ready to let go of?

Oum: Transformation is inevitable, but in my experience, it has never been abrupt. It moves in cycles. There are seasons that you can’t skip. I’ve learned to respect that rhythm, my own tempo of becoming, allowing things to mature rather than forcing change. This album reflects that continuity.

Complex MENA: There’s a fluid, almost communal energy running through the album—it moves gently, like a conversation between women. How intentional was that dynamic in the way you structured the project?

Oum: Yes, that feeling is very present. I‘m thinking about spaces where women can exist without needing to perform, where things are shared softly, without hierarchy. Women hear and understand each other. There’s something we just know. I want ‘DIALDDAR’ to feel like that kind of space: safe, open, where a woman doesn’t need to be anything other than who she is in that moment. With all her shifts, her contradictions, her plurality.

Complex MENA: The album starts from something very physical—a house, a ‘dar’—but gradually shifts into something more interior, almost spiritual. How did you approach that transition?

Oum: ‘Dar’ begins with something very physical—walls, rooms, a contained space. But very quickly, it becomes something else. There’s this question that stays with me: Where is home, really? Is it a place, a city, a house… or something we spend our lives building within ourselves? The album follows that movement, from the outside structure to the inner construction.

Complex MENA: Some of the themes you touch on feel heavier, more exposed than before. Did this project require a different kind of readiness from you?

Oum: My albums always carry traces of the seasons I move through. The emotions, the experiences… they leave marks. The past five years have been intense. So naturally, what surfaced here is heavier in some ways, but also more grounded.

Complex MENA: You lean into restraint throughout the album—nothing feels rushed or overstated. Was that minimalism something you had to consciously protect during the process?

Oum: Restraint is a conscious choice. I think it’s important today to take the freedom to be yourself and to move at your own pace. That’s becoming rare in a world where everything is fast and often starts to sound the same. For me, minimalism is a way to stay aligned and intentional.

Complex MENA: Your Ramadan tour created a very intimate, almost cathartic space for the audience. What shifts for you when performing during the holy month, both on stage and beforehand?

Oum: Ramadan shifts everything. The way people listen, the way  they receive… it becomes softer, more open. On stage, it feels less like performing and more like sharing a state.

Complex MENA: Silence plays a big role in the album—it feels almost as present as the music itself. What does silence allow you to express that words or melodies can’t?

Oum: Silence is not an absence. It’s an expression in itself. It allows space, tension, and depth. It gives the listener room to feel and to enter the music in their own way.

Complex MENA: There’s a sense of staying inside—physically and emotionally—throughout the album. Do you see ‘Dar’ as a place of retreat or a place of expansion?

Oum:

الداخل is not a place I go to hide. It’s where things expand quietly.
‘Dar’ is about returning to yourself… and realizing that maybe that’s where things truly begin.

Complex MENA: You paired each song in this album with a flower. Which one is your favorite and why? 

Oum: Each flower carries a certain memory, a sensation. It extends the emotional language of the album. I feel especially connected to the orange blossom. It’s a sensory anchor from my childhood in Marrakech, a scent that holds something very soft, very intimate, almost timeless.