Gnaoua Music in Essaouira

Gnaoua music comes from the brotherhoods founded by people brought north across the Sahara, and it fuses sub-Saharan rhythm and instruments with Moroccan Sufi practice. It was added to the UNESCO intangible heritage list in 2019. The sound is built on the guembri, a three-stringed bass lute with a camel-skin face, iron castanets called qraqeb, drums and call-and-response singing, and it is repetitive and hypnotic by design, since its proper context is the lila, an all-night healing ceremony with colours, incense and trance. Essaouira is its best-known centre and holds a large festival each June, with free stages in the squares and on the beach and paid concerts elsewhere, mixing maalems, the master musicians, with jazz and world players.

What you actually see

• The guembri - the three-stringed camel-skin bass that carries the music.
• The qraqeb - heavy iron castanets that set the pattern and the pace.
• The festival stages - free open-air concerts across the town each June.
• The maalems - master musicians leading groups in their own colours and cowrie caps.

When to go

The festival is held in June over several days and fills every bed in Essaouira and much of the coast; book months out or stay along the road and travel in. Outside the festival, groups play year-round in the town, and the ceremonies themselves fall in the ritual calendar and are not performances you buy a ticket for.

Honest expectations

Festival crowds are enormous, the free stages are shoulder to shoulder, and accommodation prices double or worse. What tourists see in cafes and squares is a short, loud extract of something that runs all night with a purpose that has nothing to do with entertainment. Recordings and sets sold as Gnaoua on the tourist strip are frequently played by musicians with no connection to the brotherhoods.

Nearby

The Essaouira medina, ramparts and fishing port are all within a short walk.