With around forty Gnawa musicians currently residing in Brussels, the Belgian capital may rightfully be called the Gnawa capital of Europe. At this point, for the first time after twenty years of living in Belgium, the album Jola brings these Gnawa artists together reflecting the world of the Gnawa in Brussels.
In Moroccan Arabic dialect, the ‘Jola’ (or ‘tour’) is the expression for an essential phase in a musician’s initiation to the tagnawit (the ‘way of the Gnawa’). All beginners follow the teaching of a specific master but their training is not considered finished until they have completed a ‘tour’ of the Gnawa alone, travelling from town to town to meet other musicians, learn other techniques and discover other worlds of sound, other ways of thinking. This album takes the listener on a journey to meet the Gnawa from different cities who have settled in Brussels.
The format of the album reflects the līla (‘night’, a Gnawa all-night ritual). The listener accompanies the musicians, step by step, on a spiritual voyage of initiation, propelled by the ostinato notes of the guembri (Gnawa bass lute). The līla is based on a repertory containing four main parts, each related to a distinct movement: the sacrifice (ḏbīḥa), the drum procession (‘āda), the celebration dances (frāǧa) and the possession trances (mlūk).
Musicians featured include Achraf Abantor, Jalal Abantor, Marwan Abantor, Hanane Abdallah, Abderrahman Benjaafar, Driss Benjaafar, Hicham Bilali, Ayoub Boufous, Abdennour Dahou, Badr El Hernat, Driss Filali, Yassine Ghailani, Aziz Moustaid, Abdelwahid Stitou, Bachir Stitou, Rida Stitou, Mohamed Zafzaf.
The booklet includes the outcome of the doctoral work carried out by the musicologist Hélène Sechehaye as part of her thesis at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Free University of Brussels) and the Université Jean Monnet,
To celebrate the release of Jola, Hidden Gnawa Music in Brussels, Muziekpublique has organized a Gnawa Festival. Broodje Brussel: the Gnawa-Pular Connection will take place on Thursday, March 19, at Muziekpublique; and a Lila – mystical Gnawa ceremony on Wednesday, on April 15, 2020 at 18:30 at GC Vaartkapoen cultural center.
Author: World Music Central News Room
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