Thirteenth Gnawa Music Festival in Essaouira
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Fifty-eight concerts and 300 artists were brought together for the 13th Gnawa Music Festival in Essaouira city this year. Every June, the Gnawa music lovers go to Essaouira’s festival where many bands gather to celebrate the music of Slaves.
It is believed that Gnawa music was brought to Morocco by Guinea's ancestors, who were captured as slaves in Sub-Saharan Africa and the word Gnawa was derived from Ghana where many of the slaves originated.
This spiritual music is a mixture of African, Berber and Sufi or Arabic religious music combined with acrobatic dancing. The lyrics of the songs are in Moroccan Arabic but some of them include old West African words whose meaning has long been lost. Gnawa music is mainly a prayer to glorify Allah and a celebration of life and freedom as their ‘masters’ who enslaved their bodies failed to enslave their souls.
