Menu
A Moroccan rap duo, a Moroccan-Italian photographer, and an American songwriter might ordinarily appear in separate corners of the cultural press. The archive of naarfr.com places them within the same editorial project. Its interviews and announcements connect artists whose work crosses national, linguistic, and disciplinary boundaries, while drawing attention to the unequal conditions under which that work reaches an audience. The site’s stated identity as a “postcultural collective” gives these encounters a shared purpose: questioning why some artists receive international attention more readily than others.
The material dated February 2018 through February 2019 shows how that purpose took shape. Alongside interviews with Moroccan artists such as Shayfeen, Issam, and Meriem Bennani, the site features Weyes Blood, Moses Sumney, Albert Hammond Jr, Christopher Owens, Jaakko Eino Kalevi, and The Garden. It also announced a European concert series featuring Moroccan rap acts. Together, these entries document a project that combined editorial coverage with an effort to bring artists into new performance settings.
The welcome entry, dated February 12, 2018, provides the clearest statement of the project’s intentions. It describes naarfr.com as a postcultural collective seeking to offset the consequences of uneven competition among artists worldwide. Its central assertion is concise: “all cultures are equal.” That statement supplies the premise for an editorial program concerned with how artists are seen, heard, and understood across borders.
The distinction between cultural equality and unequal visibility matters to understanding the site. Declaring cultures equal does not mean that artists work with equal access to audiences or recognition. The collective’s stated concern is precisely that imbalance. Its selection of subjects places Moroccan musicians and visual artists within the same archive as performers already familiar to international indie and alternative music audiences. The arrangement allows those subjects to share an editorial setting without requiring them to belong to one genre or national scene.
The word “postcultural” is best understood here through the collective’s own description and published choices. The available material does not establish a detailed theoretical system behind the term. What it does show is sustained interest in people whose work complicates straightforward cultural labels. A photographer examines his Moroccan and Italian identity; a musician discusses a childhood between cultures; a Moroccan artist working in New York speaks about the women represented in her work. Cultural background remains relevant, but it becomes a subject for discussion rather than a complete explanation of the artist.
The site’s early archive also resists a narrow division between interviews about creative practice and interviews about personal experience. Its introductions move between records, exhibitions, family background, travel, and artistic self-definition. That combination supports the collective’s broader premise: understanding an artist requires attention both to the work and to the circumstances surrounding its production. The February 2018 entries establish this approach across several subjects rather than through a single introductory manifesto.
Moroccan rap is one of the clearest recurring interests in the archive. The April 20, 2018, entry on Shayfeen identifies the duo’s members as Shobee and Small X and emphasizes the openness and forward-looking thinking behind their place in the scene. The framing presents them as artists with a developed outlook. It also establishes a connection that becomes significant when the collective later announces concerts featuring the group.
The September 17, 2018, feature on Issam approaches Moroccan trap through a different artistic personality. Its introduction describes an independent-minded performer drawn to visual and artistic experimentation in both tracks and music videos. It also identifies the internet as part of his background. Those details give the coverage a specific focus: how an artist’s musical choices, visual language, and online experience contribute to his work. The subject is Moroccan trap as practiced by a particular musician, with attention to the decisions that distinguish him.
French rap enters the same editorial field through Laylow, whose interview is dated April 27, 2018. The introduction names his records Mercy and Digitalova and emphasizes the artistic world he was building around them. Placed alongside the Shayfeen and Issam entries, this interview shows the site’s interest in rap as a medium for constructing a distinctive creative identity. The archive connects these performers through coverage of their work while preserving differences in their scenes and approaches.
The most concrete extension of that musical interest appears in the February 27, 2019, announcement of the SAFAR Tour. The site describes a series of concerts in European countries headlined by Moroccan rap acts Shayfeen and Madd. This is a different kind of entry from an interview: it announces an effort to present artists to audiences through live performance. The connection to the collective’s stated concern with uneven opportunities is apparent, although the announcement alone cannot establish the tour’s eventual reach or results.
That distinction keeps the historical account precise. The supplied archive supports the fact that the SAFAR Tour was announced, identifies its headline acts, and gives its broad European scope. It does not supply a complete itinerary, attendance figures, or a subsequent assessment. Even within those limits, the announcement is significant. It shows naarfr.com moving beyond discussion of Moroccan rap toward participation in its presentation abroad, bringing its editorial interests into a practical setting.
The same attention to movement between cultures appears in the site’s photography and visual art coverage. On November 6, 2018, naarfr.com introduced Moroccan-Italian photographer Karim El Maktafi through his search for balance between two equally important sides of his identity. The entry links that inquiry to his first project, Hayati, and to a deeper examination of what it means to belong to the second generation. Here, identity is tied to a named body of work and an ongoing personal investigation.
Viewed through https://naarfr.com/, these interviews form a record of how the collective connected artistic practice with questions of belonging, representation, and access. El Maktafi’s entry makes that relationship especially clear because the tension described in his background is also identified as a subject of his photography. His experience is neither incidental biography nor a label applied from outside; it is part of the inquiry the project attributes to his work.
The February 12, 2018, interview with Meriem Bennani adds another perspective. The introduction identifies her as a Moroccan artist based in New York and situates the conversation between an exhibition in Dubai and another in her adopted city. It also points to the women portrayed in her work as a topic of discussion. These details locate the artist within an international exhibition context while retaining attention to the people and subjects inside the work itself.
Bennani and El Maktafi therefore contribute distinct questions to the archive. His introduction centers on dual identity and second-generation experience. Hers connects artistic practice, the representation of women, and a working life across cities. Their inclusion broadens the collective’s coverage beyond music and gives substance to its interest in cultural boundaries. The shared concern is how individual artists work within and across those boundaries, expressed through different media and personal circumstances.
Moses Sumney’s March 23, 2018, entry offers a related connection within music. Its introduction moves from his brief Oscars performance alongside Sufjan Stevens to his childhood between cultures and the extended process behind his work. The public event provides an immediate point of recognition, while the interview’s stated subjects reach into biography and artistic development. This editorial choice is consistent with the treatment of El Maktafi and Bennani: an artist’s visibility opens the conversation, but does not exhaust it.
The site’s interviews with internationally recognized musicians help define the breadth of the project. The October 1, 2018, entry on Weyes Blood identifies Natalie Mering as the artist behind Front Row Seat to Earth and introduces spirituality as an important aspect of her outlook. That framing gives the conversation a focus beyond the immediate appeal of her recordings and performances. It places a particular artistic worldview within the wider archive of musicians discussing how they understand their work.
Albert Hammond Jr’s February 11, 2018, entry takes another route. The Strokes member and solo artist discusses an improvised trip to Morocco, ideas for a film about a band, and aspects of his creative process. The Moroccan connection is explicit, but the interview’s scope remains broader than travel. Its introduction presents an artist reflecting on confidence, experience, and making work. Within naarfr.com’s archive, it creates a point of contact between a widely known musician and a place central to several of the site’s other subjects.
Christopher Owens, also featured on February 11, is introduced through several layers of public identity: his songwriting, modeling for Hedi Slimane and Yves Saint Laurent, and standing among indie music listeners of the 2010s. Those references establish the image surrounding him before the conversation develops further. They also demonstrate the archive’s attention to the overlap between music, fashion, and reputation. An artist’s public presence can be assembled across several fields, and the introduction acknowledges that complexity.
The entries on Jaakko Eino Kalevi and The Garden, dated the same day, extend that range. Kalevi’s introduction combines musical interests, life in Berlin, reflections on an album, and personal anecdotes. The Garden’s introduction brings together recording, modeling, and live performance in its account of the twins. These subjects differ considerably from the photographers, visual artists, and Moroccan rappers elsewhere in the archive. Their presence nevertheless fits the site’s recurring interest in artists whose activities and identities extend across familiar categories.
The value of the collection lies in those specific editorial connections. Shayfeen and Issam establish a sustained interest in Moroccan rap. Laylow adds a French rap perspective. El Maktafi and Bennani bring photography and visual art into questions of identity and representation. Sumney, Weyes Blood, and the other musicians contribute accounts of creative development, belief, travel, and public image. The archive holds these conversations together without supplying evidence that their subjects share a single aesthetic or political position.
Read as a dated record, naarfr.com documents a collective developing its argument through artist interviews and a concert announcement. The material establishes an editorial mission, a varied group of subjects, and a practical initiative in the SAFAR Tour. It does not establish the project’s current activity or the later outcomes of every undertaking. Within that documented period, however, its focus is clear: giving artists from different settings room to discuss their work, while questioning the uneven distribution of attention that shapes who gets heard.
V3 is dedicated to offering you comprehensive apparel solutions that cater to a wide range of needs. Whether you're part of a sports team, run a sports brand, focus on merchandising apparel and accessories, or are in the world of fashion wear and private labeling, we have you covered from start to finish.