UNESCO Adds Morocco’s Gnawa Music to Intangible Cultural Heritage List

A well-deserved honor for a music as rich as it is warm that allows millions of people around the world to perpetuate their tradition.

There are few people who do not know Gnawa. It is celebrated every year in various parts of the world. But above all, in a place considered the Mecca of this music whose ritual and initiatory style bewitches more than one. This is the port city of Essaouira.

Having filed an application to register this music on the Unesco list, Morocco ensures an annual celebration worthy of the name, in particular through the Essaouira festival whose reputation has quickly established itself. Now become an international crossroads of meetings and exchanges, this event brings together artists from several continents and generations, to celebrate this unique traditional music in a phenomenal atmosphere.

What makes Gnawa happy today is its ability to accommodate many musical rhythms including blues and jazz, but also flamenco, reggae or salsa, to produce an incredible musical fusion.

For the first time that the annual meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage is being held in Latin America, it is making a historic decision that only ennobles this music that enchants humanity.