From the red city of ancient Marrakech to the blue streets of Chefchaouen one thing you will not miss are the abundance of ‘Gnawa’ musicians. There is a world of mystery surrounding the origin of this revered and celebrated art form. Moroccan’s agree that it originated from the southern reaches of the Saharan deserts but there is much dispute as to how and who originally brought this form of music to Morocco. One thing that is certain is that Gnawa has spread like wildfire through all four corners of the country. So much so, that native Moroccans with a keen ear for Gnawa can tell the origin of a musician by slight variations in style and performance in the same way as  Darija Arabic accent. One feature that unifies all Gnawa musicians are the iron rattles or ‘karkabas’ that are often used to keep the beat as this alluring sound fills the streets.

Tags: gnawa music, gnawa music morocco, moroccan culture, Moroccan Darija, Moroccan music, Moroccan Sahara, Visit Chefchaouen, visit marrakech, visit morocco

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 10th, 2013 at 12:26 pm and is filed under Photo a day. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.