“New Sounds, Old Tunes”: Tunisian Media Stars Reinterpret the Ma' luf

Between 1992 and 1994, the Tunisian Ministere de la Culture coproduced with the Maison des Cultures du Monde in Paris a series of five compact discs entitled Tunisie Anthologie du Malouf. The series is devoted to the Arab urban tradition of Tunisia known as ma'luf (literally, “familiar,” “customary”), believed to have originated in the Islamic courts of medieval Spain. Each volume presents a performance of a nuba (plural nubat), one of the thirteen cycles of vocal and instrumental pieces that constitute the ma'luf's core repertory.