According to many American music enthusiasts, Gnaoua has influenced American music of African descent, such as jazz and blues.
Rabat – CBS News, the most-watched network in the US, honored last week the 24th edition of Morocco’s Gnaoua and World Music Festival on its program 60 Minutes, the network’s Sunday broadcast.
During the program, 60 Minutes journalist Bill Whitaker explored the ways in which American music of African descent, including jazz and blues, has been influenced by the rhythms and sounds of Gnaoua.
“For many African Americans, these rhythms are familiar,” he said, pointing out that this musical expression traveled from African ports across the Atlantic to the US and contributed to the emergence of new art forms such as the blues.
The famous American actor and Gnaoua music enthusiast, Robert Wisdom, stated that the festival “was a starting point. It was a place where African Americans have a connection, which we are not really aware of.”
He went on to say that Gnaoua festival-goers feel the same connection with the blues of the past, Wisdom emphasized.
The world-renowned Essaouira festival, one of the largest music festivals in Morocco, took place in June and attracted hundreds of thousands of fans, with a total of 480 musicians from Morocco and fifteen other countries playing world music in about 50 concerts.
Impressed by the skills of the Gnaoua artists, Sulaiman Hakim, a seasoned musical world traveler, expressed his enthusiasm about the fact that these masters play in complete harmony with any other musician.
Read also: The Soul of Gnaoua Comes to Life in Essaouira
Meanwhile, the “60 Minutes” correspondent noted that Morocco’s rich and diverse musical heritage has always attracted musicians, especially from the West.
In the 1960s, the presenter continued, jazz legend Randy Weston and rock ‘n’ roll giant Robert Plant fell under the spell of the Gnaoua art.
Gnaoua has been honored multiple times. Most recently, in 2019, Gnaoua music was added to the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage.
Every year, the Human Rights Forum of the Gnaoua World Music Festival organizes a free public space alongside musical performances, highlighting an additional aspect of the festival’s ideology, which aims to bridge the centuries-old history of Gnaoua music with world music.
Morocco World News
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