After a three-year hiatus, the "Gnawa and World Music" Festival returns in its usual form for its 24th edition, taking place in the city of Essaouira in southern Morocco from June 22 to 24. The festival, which first launched in 1998, highlights a type of music that blends melancholy and exuberance, described by researchers as the sound of the moans and hopes of enslaved individuals brought from sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa before being transported to Europe. This genre gained global recognition after its connections with jazz and blues music in the Americas were discovered, and the festival significantly contributed to its inclusion in the UNESCO List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2019.
Festival organizers announced that the upcoming program will feature bands and musicians from Morocco, Guinea, Burundi, Mali, Benin, Congo, Senegal, France, Cuba, Argentina, Germany, the United States, and Pakistan. Most performances will take place at three main venues in the city: the Moulay Hassan Platform (in the city center), the Beach Stage, and the historic "Bab Marrakech" Tower.
Naila Tazi, the festival director, stated, "The festival finally returns this year to its usual format after a necessary hiatus due to the global health pandemic. We return today with greater determination and resolve to continue a path of creativity and innovation and to amaze our followers." The last edition of the festival was held in 2019, while organizers resorted to arranging a tour for participating bands last year, which included four Moroccan cities: Rabat, Marrakech, Casablanca, and Essaouira.
This year's festival program includes four roundtables led by specialists and researchers, in addition to art exhibitions and workshops, while maintaining the "Tree of Speech," a space for calm dialogue between journalists, artists, and the public to foster constructive discussions on artistic and aesthetic issues. On the sidelines of the festival, the 10th edition of the Human Rights Forum will be held, which the festival regularly hosts, focusing this year on the theme of "Identities and the Question of Belonging."
