GNAOUA MUSIC

MOROCCO: GNAOUA MUSIC INCLUDED IN  UNESCO'S INTANGIBLE HERITAGE

    The Gnaouas or Gnawas are the descendants of former slaves from populations of Black African origins (Senegal, Sudan, Ghana ...) They were brought by the old dynasties which crossed the history of Morocco and more rarely from Algeria and Tunisia, starting with the Almohade empire for works and palace buildings and the strengthening of armies. The constitution of brotherhoods of gnaouas across Morocco revolves around master musicians (the mâallems), instrument players (almost exclusively the qraqech - sort of rattlesnakes - and the gambri), clairvoyants (chouaafa), mediums and simple followers. They practice together a rite of syncretic possession (called Lila in Morocco, Diwan in Algeria) and which mix both African and Arab-Berber contributions during which followers devote themselves to the practice of the dances of possession and the Trance .

According to old and rare Gnaouis scholars, Gnawas music and rituals derive their origins from Voodoo. These practices had to change to survive and adopt Islam as a religion to ensure their continuity (the same for their cousins ​​who had to adopt Christianity in America

Gnawa music is internationalized thanks to influences outside the Maghreb, think of musicians such as Bill Laswell, Adam Rudolph, and Randy Weston, who often use Gnawa musicians in their compositions.

The purists of the musical genre fear a denaturalization of the style due to commercial objectives sometimes considered as excessive. Artists like Hassan Hakmoun, for example, organize large-scale shows for tourists.

During a trip to Morocco, you will certainly have the opportunity to come across a group of gnaouas (or gnawas) or a gnaoua alone. They are found, for example, in the Jemaa el Fna square in Marrakech, but also in the medinas of other cities in Morocco.

The purpose of this post is therefore to introduce you to Gnaoua music but also the history of this music.

History of the Gnaouas in morocco: 

GNAOUA MUSIC

      The arrival of the first generation of Gnaouas in Morocco is situated around the 16th century. For the majority of them, they are slaves, originating from Sub-Saharan African countries (notably Mali, Guinea, Senegal, Ghana, Niger) constituting at the time the Sudan Empire (taking its name from the term Arab "Assoudani", Blacks) also called Songhai Empire.

It was after the victorious expedition of Sultan Ahmed El Mansour (3rd Sultan of the Saadian dynasty) in Timbuktu, then nicknamed El Dehbi (the gilt) in reference to the large quantity of gold he brought there, that 12,000 slaves were reportedly taken to the Berber country of the Haha, in the Essaouira region.

These Gnaouas from the Berber countries are and continue to be called "gangas" after their drums.

The second generation of Ganouas was sent to Essaouira in the 17th and 18th centuries respectively by the sultans Moulay Ismail, the great Alawite sultan who brought slaves from Guinea for his personal guard, and the sultan Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdallah, founder of the current city of Essaouira who in turn brought slaves for the construction of the city.

This second generation of Ganouas claimed to be Sidna Bilal, born in slavery and the first muezzin of Islam, and whose name was given to the only place sanctuarized by the Ganouas of Morocco: the zaouia Sidna Bilal of Essaouira.

While ganga music already used drums and qrâqeb, literally "rattlesnakes", kinds of castanets in the shape of an eight, which by analogy of the noise produced will then be used to designate rattlesnakes, the music of the second generation of ganouas is enriched with guembri.

The guembri is a three-stringed lute, considered a derivative of the n’goni, an instrument from sub-Saharan Africa. This instrument plays a central role in the rite of possession of the Ganouas: the Lila de derdeba.

The lila of derdeba: art sacred to the layman:

     One of the essential points of the Gnawa tradition is the belief in spirits, the mlouk. Their music therefore presents itself as a means of liberating the souls possessed by these spirits, the memlouk. It is not easy to explain the origin of these beliefs. Are these old pagan traditions or is it the result of the syncretism of the Sub-Saharan animist cults and Islam, of which the Qur'an also refers to the jinn, the spirits, similar to the mlouk?

In popular Gnaoui belief, each melk (singular of mlouk) is assigned a color (white, green, sky blue, dark blue, yellow, red and black), a sung motto and a particular incense.

At nightfall, usually from midnight (lila means "night" in dialect Arabic), Ganouas musicians get together to communicate with these spirits and "exorcise" the possessed. Around a maâlem, literally, an "Initiate" master musician, whose role is to conduct the ritual ceremony, the musicians set up for the three phases of a Lila: the aâda (the custom), the koyyou (entertainment songs and dances) and the mlouk (occult repertory causing the trance of the possessed).

The aâda is a procession rich in colors, which is not the prerogative of only Ganouas. This parade of musicians is found in another brotherhood: the Issaouas. Unlike the first, the Issaoua Brotherhood is a Sufi path founded in Meknes in the 16th century by "the perfect Sufi Master" Mohamed Ben Aissa.

By chanting the name of Allah to the rhythm of the neffar (large single-horned horn - the Moroccan vuvuzela), the Issaouas of Meknes prefigure a trance-like entry. However, while the Sufi trance is more of a state of ecstasy transporting its initiates out of the sensitive world through the intensity of a mystical feeling, the memlouk trance in the Gnawa tradition takes on therapeutic aspects. On the stage of Dar Souiri, in front of a deliberately restricted audience, three memlouk vibrated to the rhythms of the invocations of the Issaouas.

The fusion of the Issaouas of Meknes with the Ganouas thus resonates as the infusion of a sacred dimension into a secular cult. Indeed, the Gnawa tradition is similar in all respects to the voodoo cult: the fruit of a syncretism of African animist rites and the ritual of the dominant religion.

The "secular" dimension of these two traditions is indelibly inscribed in their stories marked by slavery. And even if the aâda is sacred by the invocations of the Issaouas, the profane character of the Gnawa tradition reappears during the 3rd phase of the Lila, that of the mlouk.

The maâlem then begins to invoke each melk, accompanied by his guembri and qrâqeb. These spirits can be “saints” who really existed (Moulay Abdulkader Jilali, Bilal) or supernatural entities (Lala Mira, Sidi Hammou…). At the mention of the melk's motto, the memlouk possessed by the invoked spirit goes into a trance. It is then that the chouwafa (in Arabic dialect "the clairvoyant") covers the dancer in a trance with a veil of the color of the melk inhabiting it and burns incense adapted to this spirit.

The mlouk phase has, in the Gnawa tradition, the vocation of healing the sick and thus acting as a real cure. The Lila derdeba is considered as an initiation that would have as a starting point the disease because many memlouk remain in the brotherhood and continue their initiation once the balance found. 

GNAOUA MUSIC

      The masterpiece of the Gnaoua and World Music Festival of Essaouira is truly that of honoring all the artistic traditions which Morocco has been able to enrich during its history, by combining secular practices with sacred practices. The key word of the festival seems to be that of mysticism, profane or sacred, resonating in the middle of the city walls with the sound of rattlesnakes, guembri and neffar.