Presented on the ground floor of Bennani’s current exhibition at Fondazione Prada, Milan, this work is arranged on six different platforms spread throughout the gallery. The ‘score’ for Sole Crushing – co-written by the artist and musician Cheb Runner – is infused with motifs from Moroccan and North African musical traditions, such as the dakka marrakchia, in which movement and percussion chase each other in a form of collective ecstasy. The entire installation provides a reflection on how to work together, with each item of footwear part of a collective that, when it moves in synchronicity, makes engaging music.

Official Announce Click here

Press and review : Click here

Videos : Watch it here

Photo credit : DSL Studio

Synopsis

As the child of a Belgian mother and a Moroccan father, Younes grew up between two cultures. Now, at 32 years old, he is still trying to find his place between these two worlds. His solution? A documentary. Younes travels all over Belgium and Morocco to talk to the most diverse people: from rapping grandmothers and Moroccan metalheads to Flemish extremists. When he sits down with actor Zouzou Ben Chikha, he suddenly faces the questions he never dared to ask himself. This leads to a deep conversation with a documentary in the background. Or the other way around. It all depends on how you look at it.

Trailer : Click here

Press & other links : Canne Festival

The residency of Beursschouwburg in summer 2021 resulted in Angry Immigrant: a hour-long live-show of unreleased compositions, each track representing a year in Brussels as an immigrant. With a unique selection of synths, a drum machine and a creative mind, Cheb Runner takes us on a club journey of sky-high dreams laced with deep-down falls, of glorified expectations and distorted reality, ultimately demonstrating his continuous battle for understanding.

Read more about it here.

Snippet : Click Here
Or watch the visual essay of the try-out here.

Commissioned by Beursschouwburg (Brussel) Cheb Runner worked on a sound walk to (re)discover Brussels on foot during a Brussels in autumn in times of a pandemic. Artists like Le Motel, Mika Oki, Farida Amadou and Susobrino were asked to make custom mixtapes, music and other hybrid sound pieces are all inspired by the places and the people you will encounter along the way in this new Brussel landscape.

Read more about it here.
Listen to the sound walk here.

As coach and coordinator of the music program, Cheb Runner supports invited artist for the H3ritage Studios. The aim of the Heritage Studios is to create an environment allowing a new generation of West Asian and North African (WANA) electronic music artists to connect with others. We aim to create a platform for research, music and design where WANA diaspora artists can explore their cultural heritage and its meaning in this digital world. With the ambition to give wings to their ideas as we simultaneously work on professionalizing their practices and developing talent via cross-border long-term collaborations. Where experiment and genre crossovers are welcomed, categorized practices and cultural gatekeeping are challenged, and exploration of cultural heritage in a digital age is celebrated.

Read more about it here.

New Radicalisms is a biennial festival organized by (A)WAKE and which will take place from
30th June until 3rd of July 2022 in Rotterdam. Cheb Runner will take the role of music programmer for this years edition. The festival focuses on nourishing conversations among the WANA diaspora and together with their allies. Being all together in a shared space for a condensed time, in exile or somehow distanced from the motherland, creates a new landscape from where we can explore the meaning of New Radicalisms together. The plural ‘s’ is an addition to our first festival in 2020 as we strongly believe in varied responses to what New Radicalism could mean in relation to the WANA region and its diaspora. Throughout the festival, we unravel subjects such as the meaning of being a local, cultural heritage and the fabrics that connect us as a response to the growing identity politics around us.

Read more about it here.

Music for the campaign video of Stoul Paris. A French brand established in 2004 by designer Aurélia Stouls. Together with Paris based artist Glitter we produced the track Air Maghrib that is used for this campaign. Video is made with great talents as stylist Damese, cinematographer Salomerapinat and model Feuza Diouf. The track got released via This is Ransom Note.

Watch the campaign video here.
Listen to the track here.

Created a soundtrack for the teaser of Porte Bagage, a new Dutch movie that is in the making by production company Zouka. Porte Luggage is a film about a Dutch-Moroccan family that takes their father with dementia for one last nostalgic car trip to Morocco. The directors of the movie would like to make this film as independent as possible and therefore organized their own champagne.

You can support the project here.