Gnawa

Today has been a perfect day for Gnawa music. Folk music from the desert as counterpoint to a dreary October day.

“World of Gnawa” (Various Artists)

Gnawa music has existed for more than five centuries in Morocco and has come to the point where in the words of Gnawa musician Abdenbi Binizi, “you can find Gnawa all over the world.” Presented here is a collection that takes the listener into the history of the Gnawa, and Africa itself for that matter - into Islam with songs dedicated to praise of Allah and the Prophet Muhammad and finally to mluk, the djinn that inhabit the world of smoke and at times the world of humans.

“Gift of the Gnawa” (Hassan Hakmoun With Adam Rudolph)

and the first Gnawa album I purchased (no cover apparently available)

“The Rough Guide to the Music of the Sahara” (Various Artists)

Traveling across Algeria, Mauritania, Mali and Western Sahara, The Rough Guide To The Music Of The Sahara encompasses the hauntingly beautiful and dramatically different sounds of the desert. Compiled by Saharan music expert Andy Morgan, this album features driving desert rock and roll, Moorish traditions and remarkable guitar music. Including the magnificent desert blues of BBC award-winners Tinariwen and the funky traditional sound of Kel Tin Lokiene among other outstanding performers, this album celebrates the diversity of Saharan musical culture.

from the wiki entry:

In the context of music, Gnawa musicians generally refers to people who also practice healing rituals, with apparent ties to pre-Islamic African animism rites. In Moroccan popular culture, Gnawas, through their ceremonies, are considered to be experts in the magical treatment of scorpion stings and psychic disorders. They heal diseases by the use of colors, condensed cultural imagery, perfumes and fright.

Gnawas play deeply hypnotic trance music, marked by low-toned, rhythmic sintir melodies, call-and-response singing, hand clapping and cymbals called krakebs. Gnawa ceremonies use music and dance to evoke ancestral saints who can drive out evil, cure psychological ills, or remedy scorpion stings.

...
While adopting Islam, Gnawa continued to celebrate ritual possession during rituals where they are devoted to the practice of the dances of possession and fright. This rite of possession is called Derdba (Arabic: دردبة), and proceeds the night (lila, Arabic: ليلة) that is animated jointly by a Master musician (maâlem, Arabic: معلم) accompanied by his troop. Gnawa music fused mix classical Islamic Sufism with pre-Islamic African traditions, whether local or sub-Saharan.
Many modern Western scholars see parallels between Gnawa music and the associated Sufi tariqa and Black Americans music such as the blues that is rooted in Black American slave songs, as well as with other spiritual sub-Saharan origin black groups in Africa such as the Bori in Nigeria, the Stambouli in Tunisia, the Sambani in Libya, the Bilali in Algeria, and those outside Africa, such the Voodoo religion. These similarities in the artistic and scriptural representations are seen by such scholars as reflecting a shared experience of many African diasporic groups.

The mythologic remembrance of the desert is part of my DNA, by predisposition if not by my genetic record. I have swarthy skin for a Celt, so who knows.

For a little while, MP3 available, below.

Tags: gnawa