The Digital Roots of Moroccan Rap: Forums Before Streaming
Before algorithms decided what we listen to, before views, likes, and streams became the currency of success, Moroccan rap lived almost entirely in the shadows of the mainstream. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, hip-hop in Morocco was still an underground movement, passed hand to hand through burned CDs, neighborhood cyphers, small concerts, and, increasingly, through the very first Moroccan rap websites. These early platforms were digital meeting points, archives, newsrooms, and battlegrounds.
At a time when media barely acknowledged rap, these websites documented everything, new tracks, beefs, interviews, mixtapes, and rising talents from cities that rarely appeared on national stages. Long before YouTube, Facebook, Spotify, or TikTok reshaped the industry, names like DimaRap, Raptivist, Rap4Respect, RocmaRap, Rapmania, and later QG Prod, built the foundations of Morocco’s online hip-hop ecosystem. In recent years, platforms like DimaTOP became the modern continuation of that legacy, translating underground documentation into the language of rankings, data, and digital magazines.
Their creators paid out of pocket, worked without profit, and built tools that allowed rappers to be heard beyond their neighborhoods for the first time. They were programmers, bloggers, journalists, promoters, archivists, and sometimes even mediators in rap conflicts, all at once. This article is a journey back to that forgotten digital era: the birth of the first Moroccan rap websites, the people behind them, the conflicts they amplified, the innovations they introduced, and the reasons most of them eventually disappeared, leaving only a few names still standing today.
The Birth of the First Moroccan Rap Websites (2000–2003)
Have you ever asked yourself “how rappers shared their msuic and how fans listened to them in Morocco before YouTube and streaming platforms?”
In the early 2000s, the first known Moroccan rap websites were: Dimarap.com by HAROUN and Simofreeman; Raptivist.net by Youssef Msawya; Rap4respect By Said; Rocmarap by Simofreeman and MC JO. There were also Rapmania and many other sites.
These sites emerged during a time when rap was relatively obscure. However, after 3 years, one of them, DimaRap, was shut down. Simofreeman created a Skyblog called DJ FREEMAN. This Skyblog was ranked among the top 100 worldwide. It was the first blog or Skyblog to support both new and old Moroccan rappers.
When the Internet Created the First Moroccan Rap Beef
Approximately between 2004 and 2006, a major beef erupted in Moroccan rap between Casablanca-native Don Bigg and Tangier-native Muslim. The cause of this beef was the Rocmarap site, which went to interview each of them, filming the videos that everyone remembers: Bigg in his car in Casablanca, and Muslim with Kachela in Tangier. Those videos are still available on YouTube.
Rocmarap was the first site to introduce a new concept where you could choose a rapper based on their city, and you could also find compilations and mixtapes they had released. You could download what you wanted, and they even had a special category for international Moroccan rappers like Nessbeal and La Fouine, as well as DJs like DJ Abdel and Cut Killer, including their interviews and much more.
VIDEO: The beef between rappers Muslim vs. Don Bigg
The Cost of Supporting Music Without Profit
All this, back then, cost a lot of money. The domain alone was 600 MAD per year, and the server was very slow, with 20GB costing 1200 MAD. Because rappers were constantly sending their projects to the site, the site had to be updated constantly, which required money and time.
Between 2007 and 2010, most of these sites declined due to the rise of Facebook and YouTube. However, at that time, Dimarap adopted a new strategy: it moved to Facebook, created a page, and started a new chapter.
Q.G. Prod: The Wikipedia of Moroccan Rap
We jump straight to 2014, the year Q.G. Prod (Quartier General Prod) was founded by three people: Reda Shayler (the originator of the idea for a rapper-by-rapper biography), Amine Erray, and Karim Antar, who helped run the site.
QG Prod was launched on Valentine’s Day of 2014, as that was the day 7liwa released his biggest project at the time, “Mosi9t Chitan” (The Devil’s Music), which was an exclusive on the QG Prod site, drawing over 100K visitors.
QG Prod served as the Wikipedia or Genius of our time back then because it contained rappers’ biographies and lyrics for some songs. Many rappers heavily supported QG Prod, including Nessyou, Jelouta, and Chaht-Man (of Casa Crew), among others.
They maintained a principle of not having advertisements on the site so they wouldn’t be accused of making money off the backs of the rappers. Perhaps this is why most sites that helped rap eventually stopped, except for Dimarap, which has been operating since the early 2000s.
VIDEO: Q.G. Prod introductory video, uploaded on May 26, 2015.
Raptiviste According to Rapper Mobydick
Moroccan rap star Mobydick (aka Lmoutchou) added context in a comment below the video, noting the websites that helped promote Moroccan rap before the rise of YouTube and streaming services. He wrote:
“Raptiviste was a site that truly dominated [the scene] at the time, it was number one. Even L’Boulevard used it to announce the pre-selected artists and the winners each year through Raptiviste. A lot of artists became known only through it … Raptiviste was a very important forum”.
Wrapping it up
Before Moroccan rap had millions of views, it had a handful of believers. Before sponsorships, there were personal bank accounts paying for domains, servers, and sleepless nights. The architects of Dimarap, Raptivist, Rap4respect, Rocmarap, Rapmania, and later QG Prod, did not build for profit, fame, or algorithms.
These platforms did more than host music. They created the first real national map of Moroccan rap. They allowed a rapper in Tangier to be heard in Casablanca, a voice from Meknes to reach Agadir, and artists from the diaspora to reconnect with the motherland.
From DimaRap to DimaTOP, from forums to feeds, the tools have changed, but the mission remains the same: to document, amplify, and protect Moroccan rap. Remembering these digital roots is not an exercise in nostalgia. It is an act of cultural memory. Because there would be no streams without the forums that came before them.
And some of those pioneers are still here, uploading, archiving, ranking, and supporting, still proving that Moroccan rap has always known how to survive, adapt, and build its own future.
Resources for researchers and those interested
The following links are provided for historical reference, representing the online hubs that covered and shared Moroccan rap in its early days. The vast majority are now inactive, either defunct or their domains have since been bought and redirected.”
The Founding Websites (Early 2000s):
Dimarap — www.dimarap.com — 2000
Raptiviste — www.raptiviste.net — 2002
Rap04 — www.rap04.ma — 2004
Rapmania — www.rapmania.ma — 2004
Rap4Respect — www.rap4respect.tk
DJ Freeman Skyblog — www.dj-freeman.skyblog.com (created after Dimarap’s shutdown)
The Second Wave:
www.rapspirit.com
www.rwapa.tk
www.realhiphop.ma
www.original-hiphop.com
www.doss-clan.com
Beyond media platforms, the digital space was also occupied by labels, rap groups, studios, and individual artists, who built their own websites to promote their identities:
www.penpower.tk
www.positiveschoolprod.tk
www.mafiac.com
www.zankaflow.fr.fm
www.syndicat-family.tk
www.rapna.tk
www.k-libre.tk
www.tearsofmic.tk
www.mehdimof.tk
www.bombasquad.com
stylefnaire.skyblog.com
www.h-kayne.com
www.reddogproduction.com
www.danger-rap.tk
www.spiders.fr.vu
www.tanja-city.com
www.hiphopdabladi.net
QG Prod — www.qgprod.com
