Majid Bekkas uses Gnaoua music for dialogue

29/12/2006

Gnaoua musician Majid Bekkas has been on tour in Germany since December 16th to support dialogue between Morocco and Europe. He believes musicians can create dialogue through art.

By Imane Belhaj in Casablanca -- 29/12/06

[Imane Belhaj] Majid Bekkas believes that musicians can achieve what politicians can't: dialogue through art.

Moroccan Gnaoua musician Majid Bekkas talks to Magharebia about how art and music can create dialogue between peoples. He says artists achieve what politicians cannot, since they give music a language that knows no limitations.

Magharebia: You are on a concert tour in Germany -- before this you participated in the Arab World Institute concert in Paris. What is the context for these concerts?

Majid Bekkas: They support dialogue between Morocco and Europe. In 2007, I will be working alongside German guitarist Pedro Solaire to record one of the projects we have been working on for almost six years. The December 16th trip to Germany will yield the recording of a new album with German pianist Joachim Kühn, and Spanish musician Ramon Lopez. Our bond shows that art can open the door to dialogue.

Magharebia: Why do you think Westerners are interested in Gnaoua music?

Bekkas: It is music that speaks to the soul. People find similarities between Gnaoua and other genres of black music across the world.

Magharebia: Has Gnaoua music been able to achieve an international dimension?

Bekkas: We still have a long way to go, despite it having become recognised internationally, and perhaps more well-known than Adalusian music or Al-Malhoun, or others styles of Moroccan music.

It is principally individual initiatives, such as the Gnaoua festival which finally contributed to the spread of Gnaoua music, not forgetting western jazz musicians who found in Gnaoua music huge scope for musical experience outside of their culture.

Gnaoua has not yet become international. We must be cautious, and especially with certain music events which have not been successful, and are a discredit to Gnaoua.

Magharebia: Do you think that western rhythms lend themselves to Gnaoua music?

Bekkas: It’s good to use traditional music. But there is a risk. One must know how to work the music so that tradition is not lost and western rhythms don’t disappear. Personally, I mostly work alongside jazz musicians who produce spiritual music, its roots are African too, and this is something that most of time gives a distinctive harmony to the work.

Magharebia: How do you choose the artists that you work with?

Bekkas: The artists don’t have to be well known, they just have to be people who look for quality and excellence in music.

Magharebia: Do you think blending musical genres serves a purpose?

Bekkas: By virtue of my studies in music, my interest has always been with borrowing from the Moroccan musical heritage, and from my first experiences of Jazz and Blues. I produce a harmony blended from these genres. This blending is not strange because Jazz and Blues have African roots which stem from the slave trade. All this is to try and break free from the narrow framework of traditional music.

Magharebia: Why did you choose the Gnaoua discipline?

Bekkas: Gnaoua music chose me. I’ve been playing it since the '70s. I’m from Sale, and was raised in the Gnaoua heartland. I was tutored by the master Ba Houmane Rahmatallah, and I’ve have been going to Gnaoua nights since I was young. I naturally ended up with Gnaoua music.

Magharebia: What do you like best about it?

Bekkas: The third rhythm, its fifth keys and its African nature which gives it a special character. When we listen to Gnaoua music we grasp its diversity. Andalusian music's roots lie in Arab Andalusia, and Gnaoua's roots are African.

Magharebia: How did you get the idea for your current project, "African Gnaoua Blues"?

Bekkas: To a certain extent Gnaouan music is Blues. We find the same lyrics in Gnaoua music, and in Blues and Gospel, particularly in America.

There is playing and there are lyrics, a collection of compositions which speak of roots, of origin and of suffering to such a degree that it is possible for man to write history through these compositions.

Magharebia: In your role as director of the Les Oudeyas Jazz Festival, which is organised every year in Rabat, where has this experience taken you?

Bekkas: Since its beginning in 1996, I think we’ve made considerable progress. We were able to get started due to the joint wishes of the Commissariat of the European Commission in Morocco, and the embassies and cultural institutes of the member countries of the European Union, in cooperation with the Moroccan Ministry of Culture. We give this annual event an international dimension which enables openness and co-existence between different cultures and civilisations.

I suppose our primary objective is to create a dialogue between cultures and among people, and this is the basic point of the Jazz festival, which is to attract the interest of international musicians who have become witness to it being a important location for the exchange of musical knowledge.

Magharebia: Can art create the linkage that politics cannot?

Bekkas: The issue is now clear: artists are able to achieve what politicians cannot. Western artists have realised this and confirmed that if all the politicians were musicians, then there would be no problems in the world. This is because artists speak the same language, just as music produces a sincere feeling which knows no limitations.