Very Interesting Music. I hope to someday Visit Morocco and hear this type of music in person.
Hakmoun was born to a family of musicians[1] who introduced him to the musical world of the Gnawa. By age four, he performed alongside snake charmers and fire-breathers on Marrakech streets. His mother is known throughout the city as a mystic healer. At the age of fourteen he left school to concentrate on music.[2]
These rich, ancient Gnawa traditions have powerfully and intimately influenced Hakmoun’s early life and calling as a musician as his mother is a mystic healer known throughout Marrakesh for her derdeba trance ceremonies, often all-night affairs involving hypnotic playing and chanting to exorcise spirits. Steeped in Islamic mysticism and West African rhythms, the Gnawa musical form and its rituals lift the spirit and heal the sick and wounded through its songs of praise.