Simo Lagnawi

Gnawa is the music of formerly enslaved black Africans who have integrated into the Moroccan cultural and social landscape and founded a model to preserve the traditions and folkloric music of their ancestors. Gnawa musicians play a deeply hypnotic form of ‘trance music’, featuring low-toned, rhythmic guembri (sintir) melodies, call-and-response singing and the unforgettable sound of metal, hand-held rattles called krakeb.

Traditionally, Gnawa ceremonies use music and dance to evoke ancestral saints and cure everything from psychological ills to scorpion stings. Since his arrival in the UK in 2008, Gnawa musician Simo Lagnawi has performed everywhere from East London’s Passing Clouds to the Royal Albert Hall, Glastonbury Festival and The British Museum.

As well as playing traditional Gnawa music, Lagnawi continuously pushes new boundaries within Gnawa through his work with Electric Jalaba, Gnawa Griot, and Gnawa Blues Allstars. In this concert, Simo returns to the healing and hypnotic roots of Gnawa.