Celebrating 25 editions of the Gnawa festival in Essaouira

At the end of June, the annual Gnawa festival in Essaouira, Morocco celebrated its 25th edition with an intimate event that brought back memories of its launch. Whereas its first festival in 1998 had culminated in a big and genuine lila (a communal, all-night ceremony), late maâlem Boubker Gania at the helm with gimbri in hand, now it was his grandson who took us home with renewed energy and plenty of hope for the future of Gnawa, both as an art form and as a Sufi tradition of mystics.

Le Festival d’Essaouira Gnaoua et Musiques du Monde, to give the full name in French, has grown to be a major event on the busy Moroccan festival calendar, especially since the festival has moved to the last weekend of June, where it competes with major festivals in Europe.

Returning to the festival blew my mind. As usual, it was not the artists from abroad that were the attraction, but the general ambience of the place and the amazing array of traditional music, where the Gnawa artists were testimony to a fertile generation of young and emerging names all playing to perfection. The new trend of female Gnawa artists – instigated by the Casablanca maâlema Asmâa Hamzaoui around ten years ago with her all-female group, Bnat Timbouktou (Daughters of Timbuktu) – has continued to grow following her revolutionary arrival on the scene. Finally, this year’s festival also paid respect to the country’s veteran musicians, who have provided so many truly historic moments during the festival’s 25 editions.

Maâlem Houssam Gania, the rising star of the Gania family, closes this year’s festival

When the Gnawa festival humbly started in Essaouira in 1998 the town was small and almost forgotten, dominated by the cries of seagulls and the constant roar of the ocean, where one would walk in early morning sunshine in the aftermath of authentic lilas, still blissfully tranced out before crashing in a cheap hotel. In 1999, its current director, Neïla Tazi and her company, A3 Groupe/Communication, officially took over the festival’s organisation, after being part of the team in 1998. They revolutionised the way public events are done in Morocco, bringing attention to a town which initially was considered too cold, humid and windy in comparison to Agadir, further down on the coast. But that has changed.

Smart people like Loy Ehrlich, a French multi-instrumentalist with important connections in the Paris scene, linked the festival with amazing artists, especially from West Africa, which was brilliant, because of their association with the ancestry of the Gnawa musicians. He was joined by French-Algerian drummer Karim Ziad and Gnawa master Abdeslam Alikkane, who both remain part of the programming team. Unforgettable concerts with Cheb Khaled, Cheb Mami and Youssou N’Dour, as well as Malian greats like the late Ali Farka Touré, Oumou Sangaré and Babani Koné, put the festival on the map, while the national 2M TV station and French TV5 broadcasted directly from the festival.

On a personal note, the first festival in 1998 culminated with a genuine lila in Dar Souïri (The Essaouira House) where maâlem Boubker Gania (1927-2000) and his son Mahmoud, as well as other illustrious maâlems, all played their part in a trance ritual, while the sister of Mahmoud, Zeyda Gania – the present moqadeema or female boss at the local Gnawa shrine – worked with the spirits of the night. I intuitively was pulled into a complete trance for the first time. This was during a trance of Moulay Abdelkader Jilali, an 11th-century Sufi sage, where incense is offered to intensify the depth of the hypnotic state, and the Moroccan adepts and I were covered with white scarves, moving like sleepwalkers to the bass notes of the gimbri.

Over the next years while the festival grew, it was still possible to experience authentic lilas in private houses, where the inner square or riad, would be opened and both worshippers and spectators took part in intimate all-night rituals; everybody was welcome to join in, as has always been the tradition in Essaouira.

Today, this is all history. The only way to experience the real thing during the festival in Essaouira is the Gnawa shrine, Zaouia Sidna Bilal, where a new generation of young Gnawa masters and qaraqab players organise events. If you visit the city outside of the festival period, make sure you head to the shrine. [It’s also possible to experience authentic lilas at various sites of pilgrimage across the country, especially during Eid el Mouloud or during the Islamic month of Sha’ban, which precedes Ramadan, where fasting means no trance]

Every festival kicks off at the Bab Doukkala gate where a magnificent procession, celebrating the traditional start of the lila, enters the long main street of the old medina. When this tradition takes place outside of festival times, animals for sacrifice are paraded through the streets for blessings at Sufi shrines. Walking at a slow pace, masters play deep tebel drums with a straight and a crooked stick while, in front of them, dancers play qaraqabs and enter the call-and-response singing with their maâlem, as women chant and ululate.

This year’s procession left out the sacrificial element, and was breathtaking, ending by the gate towards the port and entering onto the main stage with thousands in attendance, where Hassan Boussou of Casablanca performed with another maâlem and their Gnawa dancers. They were joined by the Ivorian theatre group, La Compagnie Dumanlé, for a blast of a show celebrating Gnawa and Hausa dancing and drumming. United with the Ivorian group of many colours it became an amazing African celebration, hands connecting across the Saharan desert.

In the preceding hours, Gnawa groups and various Sufi brotherhoods, such as the Hamadcha and the Aissaoua, passed along the long street of the medina demonstrating genuine Sufi dancing and creating a multitude of beats like an old train slowly gaining speed with the sound of ghaitas (Arab oboes) cutting like glass through the crisp summer air.

That the procession of Gnawa groups have a lot in common with army soldiers marching is no coincidence. Though Gnawas are usually described as descendants of slaves, many are also descended from soldiers and part of the so-called Black Guard founded during the 1672-1727 reign of the sultan, Moulay Isma’il. This legendary and widely feared battalion had at its height 150,000 Black soldiers who, in a similar vein to Scottish bagpipe regiments, would precede the arrival of the Emperor. In current times, many musicians are employed by the city council and will, as part of their allegiance, typically receive the present king, Mohamed VI, when he arrives at a town in Morocco; this plays out a ritual which goes back centuries.

Among the many Gnawa groups who delivered great shows were venerated old masters like maâlem Ahmed Baqbou of Marrakech and Asmâa Hamzaoui. Mehdi Nassouli created a spectacular party on the Beach Stage on Saturday, while at the same time in an intimate setting atop a small tower at a corner of the city wall, a mesmerised audience sat on cushions listening to the Palestinian violin master, Simon Shaheen, before being party to a lila-like concert with the beloved Mustapha Baqbou of Jil Jilala fame. Elsewhere, Marrakech maâlem Mohamed Kouyou, with his rich voice and competent old-style gimbri strumming commanded a big group of dancers. With him was a group of younger jazz musicians, including sax player Mehdi Chaib, who had come straight off touring with Bab L’ Bluz, with whom he plays ney flute and percussion. Mehdi would jam with many during the festival and obviously had a ball.

Maâlem Mokhtar Gania of Essaouira, who is the last surviving brother of the great Mahmoud, was blessed with four daughters and no sons. For a long time, this would have been a catastrophe for a family, where the title of maâlem was passed down the male line. But his is a progressive approach. Cherifa Gania, his youngest daughter, has shown great promise playing in restaurants and learning from her father, so she was given centre stage during her father’s lila concert on the first night of the festival. I went straight from the big stage to the intimate space of a house, where young Cherifa played an impressive set on her father’s homemade electric gimbri, culminating in a joyous call-and-response party evolved from the celebrations of Marrakech’s ecstatic Dekha Sufis, but now with an almost rap-like rhythmic build-up along with flamenco-style clapping and vocal ululations that are typical to weddings.

Cherifa is among a wave of young female musicians following in the footsteps of Hamzaoui, who played Friday at the intimate Borj Bab Stage by the Marrakech Gate and Essaouira’s newest star, Hind Ennaïra, who has already played outside of Morocco. The wave of female Gnawas is exciting, with rising stars such as Halima El Gourd of Tangier – who grew up with US jazz great Randy Weston as an almost proxy grandfather of the family – and crossover success El Jadida’s Yousra Mansour of Bab L’ Bluz, who renews Gnawa with great respect for its traditions.

Since its start in 1998, the concerts on the two main stages mostly follow a formula, where a Gnawa artist plays a traditional set marching on stage playing drums, while qaraqab players do kouyou dancing with high, crowd-pleasing jumps. Then the Gnawa take their gimbri and sing beloved Gnawa songs, usually with the audience of Gnawa aficionados joining on each chorus. A visiting artist then joins for a short set before a finale, where they are joined by the Gnawa group for a much-anticipated jam session, which these days is normally rehearsed over several days.

Over the years there have been truly great fusions as well as clear disappointments, where guests were starstruck in front of Gnawa masters or where Gnawa musicians forgot arrangements and visitors were left to do their thing, being told after the concert that the audience wanted ‘traditional music.’

Particularly memorable performances over the years include the funky meeting of Mali’s Cheick Tidiane Seck of Les Ambassadeurs with Mahmoud Gania and his family band, Amadou & Mariam with Gnawa superstar Hamid El Kasri, Randy Weston on stage with his old Tangier pal, maâlem Abdullah El Gourd, and perhaps most significantly Tinariwen, whose political songs in Tamashek closely relate to the Tachelhait Berber dialect spoken around Essaouira, and their jam with Mustapha Baqbou, who was a pioneer of fusion with Gnawa back in the 1970s when chaâbi bands like Nass El Ghiwane and Jil Jilala (with whom Baqbou was a member) became Moroccan superstars. Watching this illustrious maâlem and Tinariwen’s Ibrahim Ag Alhabib leaning into Gnawa blues with a sonic Saharan backdrop is forever etched in my mind.

The festival has also seen moments of heartbreak, as in May 2015, when rumours circulated that the great Mahmoud Gania, dying from cancer, would show up for one last performance. Having lost a lot of weight and playing on an especially light gimbri made by his younger brother, Mokhtar, he entered the stage on the last day of the festival accompanied by a roar of applause and screams of love and support filling the air. Bowing and smiling to all sides he started to strum his gimbri, then the qaraqab began and his lovely voice appeared as strong as ever; this incredible master of masters began to dance while around him young qaraqab players were swaying with large smiles, worshipping this great teacher. As Mahmoud Gania left the stage after a lengthy set, he handed his gimbri to his young son, Houssam, who kissed his forehead, leaving many in the audience in tears. Mahmoud, however, did not like this Hollywood ending. Resting backstage afterwards he told me that he did not like the symbolism of handing over the mantle in public. To him that was not tagnawwit (Gnawa-ness). Mahmoud was the most relaxed and down-to-earth person, and just hated all the drama, knowing that all believers must ultimately return home to God, who is eternal or, in Arabic, ‘Dayim Allah.’ After the festival, he passed through the month of fasting and then left this life with no fuss. He is buried in a simple grave, which, at his request, is painted blue, honouring Sidi Moussa, the spirit of the Sea, whom all citizens of Essaouira hold dear.

Back in 2024, I ended my festival in the place where my journey with the Gnawa world of Essaouira began. In Dar Souiri there was another concert in the lila form, but here in 2024 it became a triumphant homecoming, an all-out celebration where the audience were dancing everywhere, young Moroccans banging their heads like heavy metal fanatics, helping each other through the intensity of the evening, which was growing higher with the music. This was in the very house where the festival took off in 1998 with a genuine night of trance where old maâlem Boubker Gania played and during the lila passed his gimbri to his famous son, Mahmoud. Now from the third generation, the young Houssam Gania was the master of ceremonies in a jubilant celebration, with a show touching the days of the great Mahmoud, who is still the master against whom everybody is measured. In the last year or so, Houssam has grown into a genuine maâlem and has attained the true ambience of tagnawwit. Reaching this quality is something that takes time, and inside the mystic world of Gnawa, you need to both sing and play well, but also have the mystic and empathetic quality of a healer with the ability to evoke the spirits and work with people, often with mental illnesses, who are dancing in a deep trance in front of the master.

I have known Houssam all his life. To see him on the intimate stage with the adoring crowd of Gnawa aficionados and festival-goers, who just couldn’t get enough, was to witness an amazing display of showmanship. He finally seems to be moving out from the shadow cast by the great Mahmoud.

It was as if that moment took us back to the beginning of this festival, which is more about ambience than any other place on Earth. With a heart brimming with love, I swear: Next year in Essaouira. Inshallah.

This article originally appeared in the October 2024 issue of Songlines. Never miss an issue, read the magazine online – subscribe today: magsubscriptions.com