UNESCO might include Gnawa music in its cultural heritage list

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is to consider including Gnawa music in the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in December 2019, indicates a communiqué issued by the Ministry of Culture and Communication.

After Morocco submitted a file in September 2018, the UN body will make its decision at the 14th session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage to be held in Bogota, Colombia, from the 9th to the 10th of December.

This is not the first time that Morocco makes such a submission. In 2014, Gnaoua World Music Festival organiser Neila Tazi did the same with the musical genre.

«The file is quite complex to build and we now wait on our Ministry of Culture and our delegation to UNESCO to help us make it», she recently wrote on Facebook.

For the record, Gnawa is an ancient musical genre that combines between what is religious, spiritual and rhythmic. Its music contains ritual poetry and traditional dancing.