The Moroccan royal palace announced on Saturday, June 26, the death of the mother of King Mohammed VI, Lalla Latifa, wife of King Hassan II. No national mourning was announced and cultural events were able to take place in the Kingdom. This is the case in Essaouira where the famous Gnaoua festival ended on Saturday evening.
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During the 25th edition of this event that celebrates, defends and keeps this ancestral tradition alive, more than 50 concerts took place throughout the city, including the Palestinian Saint Levant and the singer Buika. Originally, it was by offering creations, fusions and by bringing musicians from all over the world to play with the Moroccan Maâlems that the festival established its reputation.
RFI thus crossed paths with the Senegalese Kora player, Ablaye Sissoko, who was invited to share the stage with Mehdi Qamoun, a talented young musician from Morocco.
Just a few rehearsals, a few exchanges… On the magnificent stage of the Borj, when the elder Ablaye Sissoko brings in Mehdi Qamoun, everything is said: “ He’s like my son, and for me, that’s something extraordinary. », and the music takes on its full meaning.
Medhi Qamoun, nicknamed “medicine” was born in 1991. A native of Agadir, he seized this opportunity, this chance to work and play with Ablaye Sissoko: “To be with this great, great, great artist Ablaye Cissoko, it’s really something that is important to me, it’s an experience that I will never forget.”
It is natural that Ablaye Sissoko plays this role of passer. The Kora virtuoso, from Saint Louis, Senegal, feels at home in Essaouria, proud to share with Mehdi Qamoun: “We each, all of us, have things to learn and we also have things to give, but we must also show ourselves available to our people, and also available to other peoples because it is by being available towards each other that we can manage to change things. »
And when, in the setting sun, the strings of the Guembri and the kora intertwine, time freezes…and the world seems, in that moment, a little softer.
I think music has always been a savior and I think that in this world of violence and division, maybe it is music that will bring us all together.
Sound photo of Essouara, Morocco, during the closing night of the Gnaoua and World Music Festival
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