From Trolls to Trends: How MRT Wrote the Playbook for Moroccan Rap Media
A conversation with MRT co-founder Alaaeddine on transforming a troll page into Morocco’s most influential rap media, the strategic pivots and painful splits, big-budget bets, and a comeback fueled by a hip-hop festival, and ambitions to build Morocco’s WorldStar-meets-Booska-P.
When the Facebook page MRT appeared in 2016, most people saw it as a clever meme factory poking fun at the stereotypes of local rappers. Few imagined it would become the most influential rap media brand in Morocco and a rising voice across the MENA region. Today, after nine years of pivots, fallouts, big bets, and hard lessons, MRT (originally Moroccan Rap Trolls, later rebranded to MENA Rap Trends) stands as a case study in how grassroots digital culture can grow into an institution.
In this conversation, co-founder Alaaeddine Bouadya, revisits the chaotic early days, the bitter split that birthed Laafya Music, the ambitious content plays that nearly broke the team, the burnout that paused everything, and the hip-hop festival that pulled him back. “I feel 20 again,” he tells us. “I’m ready for a new chapter.”
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Origin Story: Learning by Failing, Building by Observing
Before he became a culture editor, Alaaeddine was a participant-observer. He rapped, attended events, watched crowd behavior, and hacked together free-domain websites to host artists’ music and live shows. None of the sites went viral, but he figured out distribution mechanics and embedded himself in the hip-hop ecosystem. “I learned how sharing works,” he says. “I learned about failure.”
One early influence was QG Prod (2014–2015), a Rabat-centric hub that published biographies and updates on artists like Moutchou, Nizzy Bee, and Blackwind. It revealed a gap. “I thought other rappers deserve to be included,” Alaaeddine recalls. That seed would germinate into a platform determined to widen representation and democratize attention.
The Troll Era: Sarcasm, Stereotypes, and 60,000 Followers in a Week
Alaaeddine, along with Tony, first launched MRT (then ‘Moroccan Rap Trolls’) on Facebook in August 2016, followed by an Instagram account in April 2017. The premise was satirical: skewer scene clichés and amplify in-jokes fans already traded in private. “Sarcasm worked,” Alae says. Posts played off archetypes: “Mons is soft; Lmorphine is deep”, and tapped the immediate virality of shareable punchlines. Within a week, MRT crossed 60,000 followers.
But virality scales only with labor. The team opened a Facebook group to crowdsource content. Entry required a questionnaire to filter for genuine rap enthusiasts. The group became an engine: “They made trolls for us,” Alaaeddine admits. “People were passionate and creative.” Beyond content, the community gave MRT a real-time barometer of what the audience cared about, an invaluable editorial compass in a fast-moving scene.
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Community Architects: The Names That Built the Machine
A wave of contributors helped MRT become more than a page. Youssef Hisham in Casablanca was the street reporter asking passersby who they listened to. Amina, today known for her playlist “Noujoum”, curated with taste and consistency. Taha (IMZart) documented the history of rap. Then there was Mehdi “Laafya” Al Amrani (may he rest in peace), the “mol l3afiya” (the guy with the fire) who punctuated links with fire emojis and drove massive traffic to new releases.
These figures supported the page and shaped its voice. When people talk about “MRT style,” they’re referencing an emergent editorial language born of dozens of hands and eyes, not merely one founder’s vision. It was fan media turning into folk media that turned into a cultural institution.
The Spotify Shock: Ethics, Access, and a Painful Split
The year 2018 marked a turning point. Spotify expanded in MENA; suddenly, the moral calculus around music sharing changed. For years, Mehdi Laafya, through MRT Music (a sister page), posted high-quality download links, and artists kind of tolerated it. That tolerance faded away as soon as Mehdi’s links were plainly superior in quality to Spotify. The flashpoint came with the release of the album Safar. When MRT Music posted a download, artists reacted furiously. “They accused us of not respecting their hard work,” Alaaeddine says.
The internal debate was existential. One camp argued that free access undermined livelihoods in a fledgling digital market; the other insisted the culture was built on open circulation and that audience access came first. The team split. MRT refocused its strategy; MRT Music became Laafya Music. “The division wasn’t sweet,” Alaaeddine admits. “Cussing and all… not a lovely memory.” He and Mehdi didn’t speak for years, reconnecting only months before Mehdi passed away. In retrospect, the schism mirrors a global shift: as streaming monetization normalized, fan-driven distribution had to rewire its ethics.
Post-split, Laafya innovated with striking visuals—polished typography, color theory, and identity systems. “They pushed the boundaries,” Alaaeddine concedes. MRT, which had historically “just shared stuff,” began to appreciate the power of brand design in music media. Visuals weren’t decoration; they were trust signals. As Moroccan rap broadened, design standards became a shorthand for credibility, a way to convince outsiders that the culture deserved mainstream respect.
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Going Legal: Building the MRT Portail
In the aftermath, the team set up MRT Portail, a registered association to handle money, contracts, and intellectual property. “We had to do things legally,” Alaaeddine says. “We lost money and we don’t want that to happen again.”
Even in turbulence, MRT captured history. They interviewed Stormy, Figoshin, Tagne, Small X, 8ird, Loun, Ouenza, Khtek, and Anys, and showed up at ElGrandeToto’s press conference. A series called Yawmiyat Rapper (Rapper’s Daily Notes) followed artists inside and outside the studio, archiving behind-the-scenes moments that formal media rarely records. This is scene memory work, what hip-hop studies scholars call “cultural preservation”, and it matters when the mainstream narrative is still catching up.
Burnout, Disillusion, and the Silence Years
By late 2022, the weight of constant conflict, financial loss, and the gap between image and reality took a toll. “I realized rappers didn’t live as they showed in their music videos,” Alaaeddine says, a dissonance that eroded his motivation. He left Casablanca for Beni Mellal to continue his studies, find a steady job, and detach from the scene.
Between September 27, 2022 and July 25, 2025, the page entered a low-output phase. Reach fell. Dominance faded. The follower count plateaued around 500,000, partly because the earlier troll-era audience drifted away, and partly because MRT wasn’t posting enough to grow.
EGREGORE: A Festival, a Reckoning, and a Rebirth
The turning point came at EGREGORE festival. In person, the rumors evaporated. People who thought MRT ignored upcoming artists discovered the page had simply been on “sleeper mode.” Conversations led to understanding; the event’s energy rekindled the founder’s drive. “I disappeared for three years,” Alaaeddine says. “At EGREGORE, a fire ignited. I’m 30 and feel like 20.” He planned to stay two days; he rented a place in Casablanca instead.
Today, MRT is a core team of three. Tony remains the co-pilot from day one. Ashraf, the “new blood,” who first reached out at around 14 and is now 22, handles a new generation’s pace and taste. Studio support from rapper Ouenza’s Brigade helps stabilize production. The next frontier is sponsorship: not one-off promotions, but long-term partnerships that fund staff salaries and physical spaces. “We aspire to be the Moroccan WorldStarHipHop,” Alae says, “with the editorial authority of Booska-P.”
Alaaeddine’s personal playlist leans old-school, but the feed doesn’t. “What is demanded, we share,” he says. The editorial stance is audience-first: if the crowd wants a new wave, MRT covers it regardless of internal taste. This discipline is central to scale: it decouples curation from personal bias while retaining a human sense for what’s worthy. It also explains why the post-troll audience reshuffled. The rebrand traded easy virality for cultural longevity, and while the follower number didn’t spike, the platform’s authority deepened.
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Cultural Footprint: When Your Name Becomes a Genre Device
MRT’s influence is visible in the ecosystem’s naming conventions: MRM (Moroccan Rap Memes), MRG (Moroccan Rap Gold), MRB (Moroccan Rap Buzz), MRR (Moroccan Rap Radar), and more. In 2017, the media map was short, Streetart, Adil Tawil, La Cage, and MRT. The multiplication of “MR-” pages is proof of concept.
Beyond pages, MRT lives inside the music. Rappers repeatedly name-drop the platform, mostly as validators, occasionally as foils:
- 7-Toun on “Samhini”: “Katkadbo hta katkadbo Moroccan Trolls katwara9kom” (“You lie and lie until Moroccan Trolls expose you.”).
- Pause Flow on “Peek a Boo” (a diss to Figoshin): “Sawlok 3la Pause f MRT 3titi like, salina.” (“MRT asked you about Pause, you hit ‘like’. we’re done.”) A reference to MRT’s lightning-round ‘like/dislike’ segment that became a pressure-test for scene dynamics.
- Lmorphine on “Kill 1” (a diss to Klass-A): “Rap ja lmaghrib chedoh les pages d trolls.” (“Rap came to Morocco and got caught by troll pages.”) It’s both indictment and acknowledgement: meme culture democratized rap discourse, for better and worse.
- Lferda shouted the page out in one track and dissed it in another, classic rap dialectics.
In 2017, a heavyweight co-sign helped legitimize the page. Don Bigg recorded an Instagram video praising a dedicated rap platform calling it “a rap page like the big ones in the US.” Guzman voiced public support as well. Many artists like Figoshin, Stormy, and others grew their followings through MRT’s amplification and, crucially, recognized it.
Atlas Project and Beyond: Centering the Margins
In 2025, MRT is building the Atlas Project to spotlight underrepresented regions, especially the Middle Atlas and High Atlas. “I’m from Azilal, near Beni Mellal,” Alaaeddine says. As a kid, a neighbor from Casablanca handed him a CD: Don Bigg’s 2006 album Mgharba Tal Moute (“Moroccans Till Death”). That moment unlocked a lifelong obsession. The Atlas Project aims to create similar inflection points for young artists outside the big-city circuits of Casablanca and Rabat, where access to studios, media, and mentors can be scarce but raw talent is abundant.
Alongside MRT’s editorial plans, co-founder Alaaeddine is developing a personal series about his journey with visuals by Alaaeddine Rais, as well as a podcast where rappers discuss their professional and personal ‘downs.’ He wants to investigate mental health, medication, coping strategies, and the unglamorous realities behind highlight reels. Bringing that lens to Moroccan rap could normalize help-seeking and deepen community resilience.
Industry Moves: Campaigns, Clients, and Public Funding
MRT collaborated with several brands like Raibi Jamila, McDonald’s, Sogé Bank, and TV show Jamshow, signaling to advertisers that rap audiences in Morocco aren’t niche. As brands in MENA recalibrate toward Gen Z, hip-hop media offers targeted reach, cultural fluency, and credible creators. MRT is one of those bridging the gap between mainstream budgets and street-level authenticity, proving that culture coverage can be both community-rooted and commercially viable.
Alaaeddine sought support from the Ministry of Youth and was told, in effect, that the field is too crowded to fund everyone, each artist must fend for themselves. It’s a familiar story: state funding frameworks often lag behind contemporary culture. The result is DIY media that must bootstrap legal structures, juggle sponsorships, and rely on community goodwill. MRT’s shift to an association model is as much about survival as it is about governance.
Conclusion: The Platform That Grew Up With the Scene
MRT’s story mirrors Moroccan rap’s evolution: raw, improvisational, then suddenly professional, self-critical, and ambitious. From “Moroccan Rap Trolls” to “MENA Rap Trends,” the platform negotiated the messy transition from pirate circulation to streaming-era ethics, from anonymous memes to legal associations, from pure virality to cultural stewardship. The result is an institution with memory, reach, and a renewed mission.
“I was supposed to stay two days,” Alaaeddine says about EGREGORE. “Now I live here.” It’s a fitting metaphor for MRT itself. What began as a weekend experiment became a home for a culture. The next years will test whether that home can scale without losing the spark that built it, and whether Morocco’s rap media can model something bigger than Booska-P, true to its roots and bold enough to claim the region.
