The Gnawa Lions by Christopher Witulski - Review

Christopher Witulski's book, The Gnawa Lions is the result of extensive research and immersion in the the world of Morocco's gnawa culture. It should be essential reading for ethnomusicologists. At the same time the style and content is such that it is easily accessible to a wider audience - especially those with a desire to delve deeper into Moroccan culture

In the book the balance between the academic discourse and vignettes of Witulski's experiences sit happily together.  Witulski was fortunate to be invited into the inner circles of both gnawa and Sufi brotherhoods, not just as a researcher, but also as a performer. The resulting book is a fine contribution that explores a world not readily available to a casual visitor to Morocco.

Traditionally gnawa musicians in Morocco played for all-night ceremonies where communities gathered to invite spirits to heal mental, physical, and social ills untreatable by other means. Now gnawa music can be heard on the streets of Marrakech, at festivals in Essaouira, in Fez’s cafes, in Casablanca’s nightclubs, and in the bars of Rabat. As it moves further and further from its origins as ritual music and listeners seek new opportunities to hear performances, musicians are challenged to adapt to new tastes while competing for potential clients and performance engagements.

Christopher Witulski explores how gnawa musicians straddle popular and ritual boundaries to assert, negotiate, and perform their authenticity in this rich ethnography of Moroccan music. Witulski introduces readers to gnawa performers, their friends, the places where they play, and the people they play for. He emphasises the specific strategies performers use to define themselves and their multiple identities as Muslims, Moroccans, and traditional musicians. The Gnawa Lions reveals a shifting terrain of music, ritual, and belief that follows the negotiation of musical authenticity, popular demand, and economic opportunity.

“Christopher Witulski’s focus on musicians’ lives, including their multiple musical, interpersonal, and ideological interactions and encounters, provides a welcome and important perspective that captures the reality of lived experience, complete with its complexities and contradictions. It is a highly perceptive account that never strays far from the ethnographic experience.” — Richard Jankowsky, author of Stambeli: Music, Trance, and Alterity in Tunisia.

The Gnawa Lions can be purchased online HERE

Christopher Witulski is an instructor of ethnomusicology at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. In the past he has been a correspondent for The View From Fez.

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