Gnawa artists and groups

The World Music Festival is held annually in Essaouira and provides a platform for exchanges and a meeting point of music and dialogue between foreign artists and the mystical Gnawa musicians.

The World Music Festival is held annually in Essaouira and provides a platform for exchanges and a meeting point of music and dialogue between foreign artists and the mystical Gnawa musicians.

By Tom Pfeiffer Rabat, Morocco - Morocco's Gnawa, heirs to a musical and spiritual tradition brought north across the Sahara centuries ago by black slaves, are enjoying new fame as their hypnotic rhythms hook ...

Gnawa music fuses well with other styles, such as blues and jazz whose roots also lie in sub-Saharan Africa.

Reuters - Morocco's Gnawa, heirs to a musical and spiritual tradition brought north across the Sahara centuries ago by black slaves, are enjoying new fame as their hypnotic rhythms hook listeners across the world.

Thousands of music fans head to Morocco each summer for the Gnawa and World Music Festival, turning the seaside resort of Essaouira into a North African version of Woodstock.

One of the leading world music acts based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Hamsa Lila, recently released a double live CD titled Live in Santa Cruz. World Music Central's Angel Romero interviewed band member Vir McCoy about the band and the new recording. McCoy plays sintir, electric bass, karkabas and also provides vocals. Vir McCoy's inspiration comes from the Gnawa people of Morocco, whom he felt had a direct connection to the healing music of the earth. Vir also plays guitar and was in notable bands, The Mushroom Helmut, Compost, Sasquatch and You. He also works part time as a field biologist with rare and endangered plants and animals. How and when did Hamsa Lila get together ...

Deborah Kapchan has spent years studying the music of the Gnawa and its relationship with the recording industry. Her book Traveling Spirit Master is an wide-ranging excursion into one of the most fascinating trance music genres in the globe. As the subtitle, Moroccan Gnawa Trance and Music in the Global Market Place, implies, Kapchan goes beyond the study of Gnawa music. The book provides details about how Gnawa music has traveled beyond Morocco's borders, into Europe and North America and its economic implications. France has received millions of Moroccans and, thus, Gnawa music traveled with them. There are numerous French acts that perform some sort of Gna...