Where to Hear Gnawa

The hotel version goes like this: three musicians in white, twenty minutes between the appetiser and the main course, polite applause, a tip jar. That is not Gnawa. That is a photograph of Gnawa.

The real thing is an all-night ceremony called a lila, with a maalem leading a group of musicians through seven suites of spiritual music, each suite dedicated to a different colour and a different spirit, from sunset to sunrise. You do not attend a lila for entertainment. You attend because someone needs healing, and the music is the medicine. Private lilas are arranged for specific purposes and are not public events — but they can be attended by visitors who approach with respect and understanding.

Short of a lila, here is where to hear Gnawa that has not been diluted for tourists.

Jemaa el-Fna, Marrakech. Every evening. The Gnawa musicians set up in the square after dark, usually on the south side. They play for the crowd and for each other. It is not a ceremony — it is street music — but the musicians are real and the guembri is real and if you sit close enough, the bass note will settle in your chest. Free. Tip 10-20 dirhams.

Essaouira. The Gnawa heartland. The annual Gnawa World Music Festival in June draws the greatest maalems in the country. Outside festival season, Gnawa groups play in Place Moulay Hassan and in small venues around the medina. Ask at any music shop in the medina — the owners know who is playing tonight.

The zaouias. In Marrakech and Essaouira, Gnawa brotherhoods maintain lodges where musicians gather to practice and occasionally perform. These are not listed on TripAdvisor. Ask your riad host. Ask a taxi driver. Ask the man selling qraqeb in the souk. The information travels by word of mouth because that is how it has always travelled.

If what you want is the real thing — a full lila, sunset to sunrise — it can be arranged through guides who have relationships with maalems. Expect to pay for the musicians' time and the materials for the ceremony. Expect to stay the whole night. And expect to feel something that no hotel lobby performance has ever produced.