GG Khelif

Riad Khelif has played derbouka for a chaabi band since he was nineteen, repairs drums in a Casbah workshop by day, and owns skins older than most of his bandmates. He taps while you think. Fingers on the desk, close enough to the microphone to carry, a steady figure that he speeds up as your clock runs down and drops the instant you move. He denies doing it deliberately and has never denied doing it. Two members have muted him and said so; he took it as a review. The between-sets game at weddings runs on exactly the same principle. He has offered to stop for anybody who asks directly, and in eleven years exactly one person has.