The Essaouira Gnaoua and world music festival in Morocco still plans to surprise its faithful and cosmopolitan audience this year. Crossing the symbolic course of 10 years and 500 000 festival-goers, the festival proposes this year a rich program, reaffirming its incentive to emphasize the Gnaoua heritage in all its variety and to invite the best world and jazz artists to come and perform in the unique and magical town of Essaouira.

The Essaouira Gnaoua and World Music Festival in Morocco celebrate the music of the Gnaoua, the product of a mystic tradition. Performers include the best local and international musicians of the genre.

A picturesque port painted in blue and white, Essaouira is a travelers’' favorite and the perfect destination for a festival devoted to the feats of the Gnaoua, best known for their tasseled hats, which spin wildly as the musicians rock.

Originating through a cross-pollination of African magic and Islamic rituals, the Gnaoua brotherhoods form a structured unit around a master. He leads the music and dancing until the participants are in a trance induced by the mesmeric rhythms of the drums, the guenbri (a form of lute) and the hand-held garagab (metal castanets). During religious ceremonies, Gnaouas have been known to impale themselves on swords or beat their heads with iron balls without sustaining visible external injury.

Faint-hearted visitors have nothing to fear, the Essaouira Gnaoua Festival does not feature such extreme performances: the program focuses on the purely musical elements of Gnaoua tradition and its influence on African-inspired musicians.

The festival provides a platform for exchanges and a meeting point of music and dialogue between foreign artists and the mystical Gnaoua (also Gnawa) musicians. In this melting-pot of musical fusion, the Gnaoua masters invite players of jazz, pop, rock and contemporary World music to explore new avenues.