The 26th edition of the Gnaoua and World Music Festival, which concluded on Saturday in Essaouira, attracted over 300,000 attendees from across Morocco and the globe. This exceptional three-day event offered a unique artistic and human experience through a blend of musical styles and cultural dialogue.
From June 19 to 21, Essaouira transformed into a vibrant space pulsating with rhythm and encounters, where the beats of the kamel merged with saxophones, African melodies intertwined with Cuban spirit, and Senegalese drums echoed through the city’s ancient walls and beach.
The festival kicked off with a Moroccan-Senegalese collaboration featuring master Hamid El Kacimi and the Bakalama band, alongside artists Abir Al Abed and Kia Loom, signaling the start of a packed musical program that showcased jazz, Gnaoua, Sufi rhythms, and youthful global performances that captivated thousands of spectators, including a cultural dance interaction during the concert of artist CKay.
The festival featured 350 artists from over 12 countries, including 40 Gnaoua masters, who performed on various stages, embodying the festival spirit as a musical laboratory open to the world.
This year’s edition was characterized by a diverse and dedicated audience, comprising youth, students, and families from various backgrounds, all responding to the performances with dance, questions, and reflection, contributing to a renewed collective musical memory.
On the intellectual and human rights front, the Human Rights Forum, held in partnership with the Council of the Moroccan Community Abroad, fulfilled its promises by discussing the relationship between human mobility and cultural dynamics. Thinkers and artists affirmed that migration, despite its pains, remains a catalyst for creativity and a source of rich hybrid identities.
In an unprecedented experience, the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University provided a rare opportunity for dialogue between Gnaoua masters and intellectuals and researchers, blending oral knowledge with academia in a fruitful human exchange that demonstrated the power of living heritage in a changing world.
The entire city became an open theatre, from corners to stages on the beach, from musical gatherings in the alleys to large performances that brought together generations, reaffirming Essaouira’s ability to embrace the world through the language of music, with its cultural symbolism and creative diversity.
The festival continued its commitment to knowledge transfer and training through the “Berklee in the Gnaoua Festival” program, gathering 74 young musicians from 23 nationalities in a cross-border creative experience, supervised by a group of world-renowned professors.
This edition was covered by 250 journalists and photographers from multiple countries, highlighting the festival’s international scope and increasing media impact.
The Gnaoua Festival of 2025 has solidified its place as an inclusive cultural event, transcending the boundaries of art to become a space for listening, dignity, and renewal, where tradition meets modernity, and music breaks down all barriers.
The event will take place again from June 25 to 27, 2026, in a new edition promising even greater creativity and reaffirming the recurring message: music is stronger than any borders.
