The sides of the Mohammed V Theater in the Moroccan capital - on the night of June 23 this year - shook to the tunes of "Gnaoua" music, and the throats of lovers and lovers of this special musical art with the master Hamid Kasri (one of the pioneers of Gnawi art) echoed calls from the depth of a human heritage stretching back centuries. , with a rhythm that touches the feelings, its “al-kanbari” (a stringed instrument that the teacher carries and indicates him) and “Al-Qarqab” (iron bell instruments carried by the paws), to then mix with the international jazz rhythm in a symphony that swept the audience in the multi-dimensional worlds of spiritual music.

"Gnaoua" is an authentic musical style that is not like other musical styles (Al Jazeera)

Gnaoua tour

Overjoyed, young Adel attends.

K (26 years old) to the Mohammed V Theater, not caring about the ticket price.

He told Al Jazeera Net, "Gnaoua is music and a style that I like. I like her words that touch feelings."

While Marwa (23 years) took the opportunity to attend the "Gnaoua" party in Rabat, expressing to Al Jazeera Net her joy and pride in attending the "Gnaoua" festival, whose radiance has reached the world.

On Friday, June 24, the curtain came down on the activities of the 23rd edition of the "Gnaoua World Music Festival", which has been organized in a concert tour since June 3 in Essaouira, Marrakech, Casablanca and then Rabat, during which it hosted about 121 artists, including 33 teachers and 26 artists. globally.

"We decided to go to the festival to meet the audience, because it was difficult to collect it in Essaouira due to the conditions of the epidemic despite the mitigation," said Abdel Salam Ali Kan, artistic director of the "Gnaoua World Music Festival", to Al Jazeera Net.

The Gnaoua sect initially carried the suffering of enslavement, and cried expressing the desire for liberation and integration, and today its music has become a human heritage for humanity!

What distinguishes "Gnaoua", and what is its story and history?

The Gnaoua sect initially carried the suffering of slavery and cried expressing the desire for liberation, and its music became a human heritage (Al-Jazeera)

human heritage

Adel considers that "Gnaoua" is an original music style that is not like other musical styles, "it seems far from the worlds of modern art, but it is close to them."

Gnaoua music is part of the Moroccan heritage, recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a human heritage on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.

According to UNESCO data, the term "Gnaoua" refers to a group of musical acts, performances, fraternal practices and healing rituals, and is above all Sufi fraternal music generally associated with words of a religious nature, evoking ancestors and spirits.

UNESCO adds that Gnaoua provides its followers and practitioners with a very strong sense of the value of identity within society.

Gnaoua is part of many aspects of Moroccan cultural identity.

The artist Hamid Al-Qasri told Al-Jazeera Net, "Wherever we go in the world we find a welcome and welcome. Gnaoua music has a universal value, and those who do not know what we say can receive music and enjoy it."

"Gnaoua" provides its followers and practitioners with a very strong sense of the value of identity within the community (Al Jazeera)

Freedom Cry

Today's Gnaoua music is considered the music of freedom and its dance is a dance that liberates from any possession. There are narrations that say that the iron rhythm that the qarqab produces is inspired by the rhythm of the chains and shackles that tied slaves in the past at the moment of protest or the moment of communication between them.

Hamid Al-Qasry told Al-Jazeera Net, "It is the music of freedom, the time of slavery is over, and everyone today worships God Almighty."

The Gnaoua culture is rooted in groups and individuals from slavery and the slave trade dating back to at least the 16th century.

And in the book “Fez Before Protection, Part Two” by Roger Lotorno, it says, “People sects are often called upon by private people to give splendor to their family parties (…) and they were also connected to Gnawa (Guinea), as it was related to Negroes who had come to Morocco in abundance from the sixteenth century onwards. (…) The Gnaoua sect was accepted as members only by blacks.”

The specialist in tangible and intangible cultural heritage, Abdul Rahim Al-Barti' - to Al Jazeera Net - explains that the lyrics of Gnaoua songs evoke the past of slavery and displacement, as they contain groans, shouts and signs in Arabic, Berber, colloquial and sometimes incomprehensible sub-Saharan languages, but they symbolize pain and suffering.

He adds that the words also have a religious aspect, such as praying for the Messenger and invoking our master Bilal, the muezzin of the Messenger, whose name the people of "Gnaoua" named after their corner in Essaouira.

Gnaoua retains cultural depth and privacy (Al Jazeera)

Mix and privacy

The art of "Gnaoua" entered Morocco from the sub-Saharan regions in different stages, and they carried with them songs that blended with the cultures that were prevalent in Morocco.

According to Abdel Salam Ali Kan, "the African tributary from sub-Saharan Africa has been present in Moroccan society for a long time, in a historically unlimited relationship."

Ali Kan explains that Morocco had another activity represented in the Hamdushiya, Issawiya and Qadiriyah angles, and therefore "Gnaoua" was inspired by the sects, and the other sects were taken from them artistically, and a mutual effect occurred.

Ali Kan stresses that the “repertoire” (artistic repertoire) that exists today, the lyrics of the songs and the colors are a Moroccan composition, pointing to the presence of the Gnawi art structure in all of Morocco, in which a mixture of the ancient cultural load and the Moroccan sects.

Despite the openness witnessed by Gnaoua music and the demand for mixing it with a group of international rhythms, especially jazz and blues, Gnaoua retains a cultural depth and specificity, as experts in this culture consider Gnaoua music to be only a part, written today in the form of notes and can be played in any A place in the world, but the spirit and depth of Gnaoua are preserved.

rooting and inheritance

Gnaoua, in terms of being an art and a ritual, is not taught in music institutes, but in traditional ways through the teacher (leader of the band), and the knowers talk about a “craft” that has multiple and deep cultural meanings, inherited through training and indoctrination.

UNESCO states that Gnaoua is deeply rooted in societal practice and its transmission is assured, as knowledge associated with Gnaoua culture is transmitted informally within the family or in the social circle close to Gnawa families.

According to Abdel Rahim Al-Barti’, all those involved in Gnaoui art and officials are aware of the importance of preserving and encouraging teachers to train new youth in the authentic Gnaoua way, while at the same time highlighting the art of “Gnaoua” according to controls, including working in platforms that require certain techniques and preserve only the ceremonial aspect of this culture. .

"The spirit of Gnaoua is privacy, and it must be preserved so that it does not melt and fade," he added.

The Technawit learner goes through certain stages to become a teacher and is recognized, through accompanying from childhood, helping and engaging in Qaraqab and attending the nights of the Hadra, then controlling the music and movements.

"The teacher, without a sheikh, is empty (his balance is empty)," Hamid Al-Qasri says, and continues his testimony to Al-Jazeera Net. "We used to hear Technowit only at nights, and we used to go to night and work in it. You must make an effort and be obedient, humble and disciplined, as the rules of the soldier."

"Since I was a child at the age of nine, and I am in this state, I have learned by hearing, and I have learned through the Golan," Kasri adds.

The teacher is recognized in the Gnaoua custom by handing the head of the band to his Canberra learner and presenting him to play on the night, and then the rest of the teachers recognize him.