“Safi has this silent power on you,” Small X reflects pensively. “People from cities where there is nothing to do gain a strange kind of power, getting high on nothingness. I am sure it affected how I express emotions and how I make music. It teaches you how to feel and notice the subtle shades of pain—the common, boring kind of pain.”

Safi was originally a Portuguese fortress in the 16th century under its colonization. Today, it remains Morocco’s main fishing port, quiet and with few distractions, a town often excluded from Casablanca or Rabat’s cultural gravity.

While Safi sits roughly at the geographical heart of Morocco, it remains culturally peripheral—a city bypassed by major investment and national imagination alike. Once known for its phosphate exports and ceramics, its economy has stagnated in recent decades, with youth unemployment persistently high and few industries beyond fishing and port activity. 

Public infrastructure is often neglected, and cultural institutions are virtually nonexistent. For a young artist, this means growing up in a vacuum without studios, scenes, or mentors. That isolation, Small X suggests, becomes its own kind of force.

It is from this scarcity that an underground scene began to crystallize in the early 2000s.

In the post-9/11 world, Moroccan youth began to face rising social repression, increased state surveillance, and an overwhelming tide of cultural import from the West. Raw, percussive, and anti-authoritarian hip-hop naturally became the language through which Moroccan youth responded.

From those humble roots, Small X, born Abdessamad Lamriq, formed the rap duo Shayfeen in 2006 with fellow Safi native and childhood friend Chouaib “Shobee” Ribati.

Over the next decade, Shayfeen steadily built momentum with mixtapes and underground performances. In early 2016, they released the seven-track EP 07, a symbolic nod to their origins.

The number “07” is a reference to the vessel indicator numbers for boats docked in Safi.

More than a simple title, it is a reclamation of place and identity at a moment when Moroccan rap was gravitating toward Casablanca-centric production. Widely recognized as one of Morocco’s first trap-influenced rap projects, 07 helped open doors for artists from outside the capital to assert themselves nationally and online.

The duo’s breakthrough came in 2018 with trap‐influenced hits like “Wach Kayn Maydar” and “Tcha Ra,” a monster collaboration featuring Moroccan rapper ElGrandeToto and other rappers from the country. 

Shayfeen’s lyrics laced with ambition, street hustle and humor helped define a modern Moroccan rap sound. 

“I THINK WE OFTEN FORGET THE ONES WHO STAY TRUE TO THEMSELVES.”

Small X credits Shayfeen with “breaking social codes” and showing young Moroccans that creative careers were possible.

“I think so,” he says when asked if the duo succeeded in changing minds. “Shayfeen was an authentic prism of reality – reflecting what the youth wanted to show and say, but didn’t yet have the voice to express. We did that for them. We were paving the road, just like others are doing now, and we’re still doing it in our own separate ways.”

Their footprint in Moroccan hip-hop felt seismic. 07 not only reached a global audience but also helped cement their reputation at home. Each of their major singles has since topped one million plays on YouTube, and their collaborations with fellow heavyweights like Dizzy DROS earned them deep respect within the scene.

Yet in 2021, the iconic duo amicably split, each choosing to pursue solo careers.

Small X is insistent, though, that the real success was cultural. 

“One big turning point was when Moroccans actually started feeling proud to listen to Moroccan rap,” he recalls.

Street culture being embraced by local audiences felt like a watershed moment for the country. It was the validation Shayfeen had long pushed for.

Indeed, Small X observes that many rappers, including himself, helped push things forward.      

He also warns that trends can be fickle.

“I think we often forget the ones who stay true to themselves, [the artists] doing the kind of rap and genres they really love, regardless of trends or what’s popular right now.”

Indeed, Small X has long chosen to forge his own path. Rather than follow the wave, he gravitates toward what he calls his own “creative frequencies,” resisting the pressure to chase fads. 

Small X’s career itself has ridden the broader waves of Moroccan hip-hop’s evolution, dating back to the genre’s origins in the country in the mid-90s when migrant returnees to Morocco brought back early rap influences.           

With the widespread use of social media in the 2010s, many Moroccan artists felt free from radio gatekeepers  and hip-hop had spread throughout the country, embodying a voice of dissent.

Small X notes this inflection point: “A lot of rappers helped push things forward,” he says.

Early pioneers of Moroccan hip-hop like Don Bigg and the Meknes group H-Kayne made headlines with socially conscious lyrics, defining the sound of this genre in the country and presenting a platform for youth to express their concerns and act as a barometer of societal issues.

Of course, the genre was seen as threatening in Morocco. Its origins in protest, its association with poor neighborhoods, its alignment with global Blackness—these all clashed with Morocco’s controlled cultural apparatus.

In 2005, the Moroccan government launched the “Mawazine” festival, ostensibly as platform for emerging artists but equally as a tool of containment.

They provided spaces for artistic expression, visibility, and validation but under careful supervision and tacit rules.

While these kinds of festivals allowed artists to break through, they also created a new hierarchy.

Those who played by the rules both musically and politically could rise. Others who refused to compromise were swiftly excluded or suppressed.

Yet even within these constraints, hip-hop found a way to speak to the people.

Tracks became vessels of protest, voicing anger at corruption, unemployment, and systemic injustice.

The genre became a mirror to the urban youth, a space where their frustrations could take form.

During this period, rappers like El Haqed became famous for recording chants from the street, as hip-hop began intermingling with a broader democratic opening. 

“WE NEED NEW GENRES, NEW PEOPLE, NEW ATTITUDES, AND NEW MESSAGES.”

By the time Shayfeen broke through and the genre diversified, Moroccan rap was no longer monolithic. Some artists leaned into trap and bling, others kept it hardcore conscious.

When the Moroccan youth saw their stories on stage and online, it changed the entire game. Hip-hop spoke to the majority of Morocco’s youthful population, despite the dominance of mainstream Euro-North African pop and love ballads.

In that context, Shayfeen’s success helped legitimize the whole scene. They opened the door so many could follow.

Today, Morocco is considered one of the region’s hip-hop powerhouses, and artists like Small X and others are credited with taking hip-hop from a niche subculture in Morocco to the global stage.

Even so, Small X still feels the scene could grow even bolder.

“We need new frequencies – not new trends or formulas that already work,” the rapper explains. “We need new genres, new people, new attitudes, and new messages. There’s so much other music and so many voices that deserve space. The Moroccan audience needs to diversify its taste, and doing that opens up new pathways in your mind – roads we don’t usually go down.”

He laments the homogeneity of the rap scene at times. Too many rappers, he observes, simply mimic whatever is hot.

If drill is big, everyone does drill. And if trap is big, everyone does trap.

Instead, Small X wants an exploration of uncharted soundscapes. His own new project is an answer to that call.

In May 2025, Small X opened on a new chapter in his career with an introspective EP called NAFIDA (“window” in Arabic).

He plays with the symbolism of the word throughout. A window, after all, can be both a portal to see out and a barrier that keeps you trapped in.

Each track takes on the feeling of a monologue contained, a sort of dispatch from within.

“The project is like a window — for me and for us,” he elaborates. “It’s the window we opened during the retreat, but also a window others can open whenever they want. You know that nonchalant moment of just staring out the window to clear your mind? It’s a bit like that. It belongs to everyone.”

NAFIDA marks Small X’s first release under legendary New York-based label Mass Appeal, founded by hip-hop legend Nas.      

In 2025, Small X became the first artist from the Middle East and North Africa to join the Mass Appeal roster.

Mass Appeal prides itself on elevating artists who uphold hip-hop’s core values while pushing the limit of what the genre can be, and Small X certainly fits that vision.

“I was immediately impressed by Small X’s dynamic sound and once I translated what he was saying, it made it perfect sense for us,” says Peter Bittenbender, CEO of Mass Appeal. “He represents real hip-hop with his lyricism and song concepts. That is what Mass Appeal is all about.”

The deal was not orchestrated as a publicity grab, Small X insists.

“It happened naturally,” the rapper says. Though he had other offers, “we chose Mass Appeal because it felt less corporate—less about selling music and more about telling stories.”

Small X emphasizes that while Mass Appeal is a large, successful record label with brand cache, it’s built with genuine hip-hop culture at heart.

“Of course, it’s not an indie label, but it’s rare to find a structure that big and that committed to hip-hop culture,” he notes.

Neither partner in this record deal is looking for tokenism. Small X is clear-eyed that “deals like this mean much on their own,” adding “we don’t need validation – we need people who understand and trust the vision.”

The rapper views Mass Appeal as an extension of his platform.

“We don’t expect anything specific,” Small X says of the partnership with Mass Appeal. “It’s more about how we collaborate — how we use their network to benefit Moroccan and Arabic rap and move forward in unconventional ways. We want to create lasting success — something meaningful for both sides.”

“YOU MAKE IT SOUND LIKE MY LIFE IS A BLOCKBUSTER PLOT.”

In practice, this might mean leveraging global distribution or cross-continental collaborations. But this is done only on his own terms.

The EP itself is born out of a week-long retreat in the town of Asilah, where the rapper says his creative constraints fell to the wayside.

“Honestly, the only structure we had was mealtimes, avoiding mud, and chilling under the moonlight…we had the luxury of turning the emotions of the place directly into music.”

Small X and Moroccan producer Saib holed up for a week in a rustic chalet on Morocco’s Atlantic coast, inviting friends to join them during recordings. 

This exile from noise set the tone of NAFIDA: a delicate, lo‐fi chamber music for rap.

Saib, known for chill, jazz and soul‐inflected beats, provided warm and textured backdrops.

The production hones in on breathy guitar loops, dusty drums, and vintage synths     allow Small X to slow down, turn inward and speak from a place that feels deeply personal.

It opened space for the rapper to seamlessly glide through different genres. A bit of boom-bap here, ambient haze there but it always remains hushed and intimate.

Saib sprinkles local color into the mix with jazzy guitar riffs and soft, percussive patterns full of Moroccan warmth without turning cliché or self-orientalizing. The sprawling seven‐track EP is meant to be heard straight through as a journey on its own.

The EP starts on “Nebula,” a slow, looping guitar piece that evokes childhood nostalgia, by design: “Because of the textures,” he explains. The hazy resonance of the track “Nebula” was serendipitous. 

The atmospheric intro and nostalgic lyrics of the song, Small X shares, “felt like the start of something—and it made sense since the song is about nostalgia for my youth. Plus, Nebula is literally the birth of a new star, so yeah… a perfect excuse to make it sound smart and intentional.”

Each song thereafter feels like its own room, or contained space. The subdued single “Bghit” swings between joy and longing, “Mraya” sinks into meditative reflections and “Albi” provides a clear-eyed mirror on life.

Even the only song with guest verses, “Shine,” featuring Moroccan singer Rhita Nattah and Detroit rapper Black Milk, feels like part of NAFIDA’s same interior universe, energetic at times but still carried by the same intimate guitar loops and moody synths.

On NAFIDA, Small X deliberately sheds his old bravado. Gone are the bombastic flows about cash and conquest; in their place is a reflective elder-statesman of rap.

The bars feel frank and personal, as if they are unafraid of sadness or doubt.

Each track is a warm invitation inside, unpacking what it means to grow older in a youth-driven scene. It dives deep into what it feels like to worry about tomorrow, reflect on beginnings and ending, and find peace in the in-between. 

He is comfortable peeling back his own myth on record, showing a tenderness and vulnerability that Moroccan rap rarely allows.

Although it is a far cry from the bombast of Shayfeen’s early trap days, Small X still insists the transition wasn’t planned as an artistic statement. It emerged organically: “NAFIDA is the result, not the starting point,” he says. “We made music and then realized it fit into a bigger picture.”

He raps primarily in Darija, the vernacular of the streets, blending raï-inflected samples and local references into a global hip-hop template. Fans who do speak Darija will appreciate the nuance. Small X peppers his songs with poetic Arabic wordplay and old-school Moroccan slang. He nods to everything from soccer clubs to classic game arcades.

Alongside this dance of local and global influences runs a theme of personal freedom; Small X rejects the pressure to follow trends or chase clicks or clout.

As Shayfeen put it years ago, they never cowered to radio or TV. NAFIDA is an extension of that DIY spirit: a project by and for the artist himself, not for a formula.

Throughout the EP, Small X holds staunchly to his Moroccan roots. When asked how he balances global ambitions with staying true to his origin, his answer is unequivocal.

“Global appeal comes from being deeply and authentically proud of your roots.”

The rapper believes the formula for worldwide resonance is not imitation but being authentic.

“We’ve hit a point where the world is saturated with the Western version of success,” he argues.

Instead of chasing Western models of success in music, he is betting that the next wave of international interest will come because artists like him have something special to offer.

“I think global appeal will start coming our way – not because we’re chasing it, but because the world needs us more than we need them.”

In other words, a Moroccan narrative told in Darija and backed by genuine feeling will stand out on the global stage precisely because it is different. This pride in place and language goes hand in hand with his creative process, which he constantly reinvents.

“What keeps me creatively inspired after two decades?” he muses. “Constantly questioning myself musically — and trying to create music that still feels honest and fresh.”

That honesty extends to vulnerability. In NAFIDA, Small X laid bare thoughts and feelings more than ever before, and he admits he was initially surprised by the reaction.

“People responded really well. It surprised me. Of course, we weren’t expecting some huge mainstream explosion — if that had happened, something would feel off with the industry,” he laughs. “We just sensed that people were ready for a project like this. They need real moments of vulnerability.”

If anything the album’s success feels right. It is a sign that Moroccan hip-hop has room for intimacy. He’s careful to note he didn’t set out to craft a cathartic diary: “I don’t even think I was being vulnerable – I was just making music without the pressure of having to be the best.”

Still, some moments of reflection did find their way into the music. The question of legacy, what part of his story will outlast all the noise, gives Small X pause.

“That’s a great question – one I hadn’t really thought about. You make it sound like my life is a blockbuster plot,” he laughs.

But then he turns philosophical: “Honestly, my story is just the meeting point between me and the people who listen to me. It’s in those intimate moments we share. Above the noise, I hope my music stays living in people’s hearts and playlists — helping their own noise disappear, even if just for a moment.”

Throughout NAFIDA, Small X shares the spotlight with some respected peers. Of course, we find producer Saib’s fingerprints everywhere.

His moody keys and soft drums shape the EP’s entire aesthetic and feel. While singer Rhita Nattah lends her soulful vocals to “Shine,” and Detroit’s Black Milk, fellow Mass Appeal artist, adds a verse that meshes seamlessly with the introspective undercurrent.

Of course, through it all, he still honors his roots. The name Shayfeen means “we witness,” and this sensibility underpins everything: he and Shobee—along with younger artists like rapper Madd—built a local scene by staying true to their vision.

Even today Small X occasionally connects with old friends. His spotlight-featuring work – like appearances on ElGrandeToto’s albums – and the reunited crowds at Casablanca shows attest to the enduring spirit of community.

He speaks of Moroccan rap with pride and humility: this is culture from Morocco, speaking Moroccan stories in Moroccan Arabic, and now it is reaching a wider world on its own terms.

His recent music, especially NAFIDA, finds him gentler and more reflective than ever, yet still forceful in message.

As for what comes next, Small X hints that he is already looking forward.

“A new album is on the way,” he reveals, almost matter-of-factly. This will be “emotionally honest—like a continuation of NAFIDA—and musically, it’s going to blend all the influences I carry with me.”

There are no further details, just a promise that his journey continues with no end in sight. Given a career that continues to intentionally veer off the mainstream freeway in favor of unexplored byways, that is quite fitting.

Small X’s legacy is twofold. As half of Shayfeen he proved Moroccan hip-hop could command arenas and as a solo artist he’s showing that the genre can evolve in unexpected directions. He is signaling that Moroccan rap’s story still has many chapters to write. In his own words, NAFIDA is a window and Small X has only just begun opening it.

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PRODUCTION CREDITS: Editor-In-Chief Danny Hajjar. Photos Salaheddine El Bouaaichi. Cover Design Lillo Bergh. Creative Direction Salaheddine El Bouaaichi and Driss Eddebbi. Styling EWA LBES. Line Producer Iliass Tarkaoui. On-site Production Blankka Studio. Project Manager Othmane Bellamine.