Foullani

While we are not usually listeners of Gnawa music, "Foullani" is quite enchanting. Very repetitive lyrics also trance-inducing with the deep sounds of the stringed instrument (guimbri?). A shorter but still hypnotic rendition can be heard here. 

Gnawa Bambara

An interesting fusion of jazz with Gnawa music, and named in honor of the Bambara!

Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture

Hisham Aidi's new book was a great read, although I can't help but feel that perhaps it was too ambitious or endeavored to cover to many regions and topics. Also, at times I could not find a link to music and popular culture in some chapters, even though they were fascinating nonetheless (I am thinking specifically of the 'not quite white' chapter on Arab-Americans in the US racial order), but Aidi is certainly 'breaking new ground' by linking music and popular culture to these new stages in Muslim identities around the world. Before reading this dense text full of intriguing references, I already knew about the influence of hip-hop and African-American music and social movements on people of color and Muslim youth around the world, but this book goes even further by examining the impact of jazz and African-Americans on the explosion of gnawa music's recognition (thank you, Randy Weston), as well as exploring some of the long-established links between Islam among people of African descent in both the US and Brazil. In addition, Aidi offers an interesting analysis on Arab-Americans and where they 'fit' in the US racial schema, particularly now that there are more 'black Arabs' in the US, and because of the ways in which Westerners racialize Islam and discriminate against Muslims in government agencies and popular culture.

Moreover, the book remains accessible to scholars and the lay public who lack a deeper understanding of the various strains of Islam thought, including Salafism or even the deeper history of Maghrebi immigration in France and how music (particularly gnawa) was reappropriated by North African youths in the diaspora and at home as a result of gaining international attention in the West. It would seem that popular music across much of the Islamic world and its diaspora owes much to immigration, as well as experiences of alienation, racism, and social unrest in Europe and the US, although it clearly reverberates back in the homeland. Although much of popular music among Muslim youth around the world is influenced by African-American music (hip-hop, jazz, rock) and Afro-Caribbean forms (reggae), there also exists the tremendous influence of Islam on African-American musical forms, especially jazz (the Ahmadiyya stand out as one example, as well as other forms of Islam) and hip-hop (Nation of Islam, Sunni Islam). All in all, an enjoyable read full of unexpected facts and details that will have one reading more into Afro-Arab histories and Islamic youth cultures.

Gnawa and Jazz

Strange, beautiful, soothing yet also familiar. The music of West African-descended Morrocans, Gnawa, meets African-American free jazz musician Pharoah Sanders.

Gnawa Diffusion, Algeria and Bridging the Gap Between North Africa and the Continent

Gnawa Diffusion, led by Amazigh Kateb, son of Algerian Berber writer Kateb Yacine, represents an interesting opportunity for examining in Maghrebi North Africans perceive themselves in relation to non-Arab, non-Berber Africa. If the name of the band does not articulate the cultural métissage the band aims for, listening to them fuse Algerian Arab, Amazigh (Berber), and Gnawa musical traditions with rai, reggae and other forms of music will reveal the group's Pan-Africanist ideals. Amazigh Kateb, Algerian immigrant to France and son of one of Algeria's prominent literary figures, does not hide his pride in Algeria, Africa, and abolishing racial prejudice. Moreover, as someone who has been meaning to write a post about the fallacy of equating North Africa with some projection of the "Middle East" hanging above Africa but having nothing do to with the rest of the continent, Gnawa Diffusion provides a powerful contemporary example of North Africans embracing their African identities. Indeed, the various Berber-speaking peoples of North Africa are the origin of the word "Africa" as well as historically the first "Africans" Europeans encountered. In spite of this, the African student organization on my campus includes nobody from North Africa. And mainstream consciousness of the divide continues to perpetuate itself based on ignorance of history, culture, and apathy to Africa. This is not to suggest that I adhere to some insane idea of a monolithic Africa, but the maintenance of the myth of a divided Africa because of the Sahara remains attached to Western (and some African) academia and media. An 2004 article from BBC challenges that narrative a little bit and is worth perusal.

Gnawa Diffusion's song, "Algeria," which can be listened to here is the among the epitome of the broader definition of African unity espoused by Amazigh Kateb. Playing the gimbri and krakebs associated with Gnawa music, the music of black residents in southern oases in Algeria and Morocco, Kateb uses a genre of music associated with black minorities to express national Algerian identity. Although the Gnawa and Haratin populations of Algeria are small and mostly concentrated in the south, their influence has been profound on North African Berber and Arab music and spirituality. By centering a tribute to his Algerian homeland through Gnawa lens, the light-skinned Kabylie Berber Kateb orients Algeria to its African identity as a land of neither black nor white, Berber nor Arab. Furthermore, Kateb includes black Algerians in one music video shot in Algeria, ensuring inclusion of an often neglected group as well as titling some of his songs with references to African unity or progress, such as "L'espirit Africain" and "Africain Algerie" that other Algerian stars have yet to do, such as Cheb Khaled. In the case of Cheb Khaled, though dark-skinned, none of his musical content or videos have featured prominent pan-Africanist themes, although occasional black figures appear (as in "Chebba").

Anyway, Gnawa Diffusion seems to be one of the few Maghrebi musical groups with a pan-African consciousness. As someone always interested in mutual perceptions of Francophone Antilleans, West Africans, and North Africans in France, I have asked North African and 'black African" French people I've met about relations between the two. A black woman whose parents were from Cameroon told me relations or any idea of kinship was non-existent. She also described Algerians as white. As someone who taught mostly Algerian children in Marseilles, she has significant exposure to Africans of North African descent in France. Another person I've spoken with, of Moroccan descent and secular, expressed interest in some broader shared experiences of colonialism and was well-read to the point of discussing negritude and postcolonial theory. The light-skinned, dark-haired woman had even read Cesaire's Discourse on Colonialism and other classic texts in both the aforementioned schools of thought! 

My plan for the future is to write an extended post on the relations of North and 'sub-Saharan" Africans in France and Francophone Caribbean immigrants. Since the literature on immigration and race in France seems quite slim when it comes to mutual relations among people of color and immigrants, differences between Berber and Arab North African communities, and blackness in France, it will likely be a difficult task.