BIOGRAPHY

His footsteps leave a trace a Morrocan keynote and the mystical aura of a Gnawa trance. Inscribed in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, Gnawa represents the ritualistic cultural practices of Berber peoples, the celebration and expression of which Saïd Mesnaoui is very familiar. Listening to his music with eyes closed, you can almost imagine a caravan of nomadic men and women, gentle and poetic. That’s because, in Gnawa’s essence is a rhythm that goes back to the dawn of time, from which the artist draws his inspiration in a musical path that is continually reinvented with modern arrangements. His album Al Maddloum (The Oppressed) transposes the vigour of his rhythmic songs through the clamour of hands, a universal human gesture accentuating rock, reggae, blues and jazz harmonies.

A disciple of Gnawa rituals since the 1970s, Saïd merges them into one. Founder of the band Al Aânadile, he had crisscrossed North Africa and the Middle East, at halls and demonstrations, before settling in Canada in 1986. His music is an ode to hope and peace on earth, the freedom of the dove as a symbol for the world’s most disadvantaged. Humanistic prose opening the way to internalization in a cycle that joins each and everyone together through this experience called life.