While I'm waiting to get this "crucial" interview with a particular Gnawa ma'alem here in Essaouira, I decided to move ahead with another interview with a different ma'alem, Ma'alem Allal Soudani, who also happens to be playing at the world-famous Gnawa festival this year. His family history and background is thoroughly based in tradition and is as impressive as any of the other "famous" ma'alems here in Essaouira, a town which is known to be a real hot spot for Gnawa music, a kind of Mecca where the tradition began.
The interview last night with Ma'alem Soudani was no less than stunning. He was full of energy, sometimes jumping up from his seat, waving his arms wildly to emphasize a point. He talked for almost 4 hours, although three times he started to get up to leave and then would think of another point he wanted to add.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration in the least to call his ideas about the Gnawa absolutely revolutionary; some would even call them sacriledgous. He himself said that many ma'alems would cut off his tongue if he spoke to them what he was saying to me. I noticed that he would be watching me as Abdellah gave the translation and when I often said, "Wow!" and looked at him to show him I understood the point, he would nod and smile in a clever and knowing way that endeared him to me straight away.
I will be uploading this interview in the usual place in the coming days. Because the interview was four hours long, it will take awhile. But for any music nerds or those curious to hear, it's a fascinating interview that, perhaps, might even ruffle some feathers in the academic world of Gnawa experts.
Like the last time, the failed interview, I had a big tajine prepared as well as the traditional tea while the three men, Hassan, Abdellah and the ma'alem smoked out. I still find it a little comically interesting that the pipe is never offered to me even though all of these men are quite "21st century" and so many foreigners here come solely for that purpose (the Morccans knowing this well). But I don't particularly want to smoke and I don't ask for the pipe. Still, I enjoy observing how I'm perceived, treated and related to.
Both Hassan and Abdellah seemed equally stunned by the ma'alem's depiction of history; primarily the event that brought his family to Essaouira: the ma'alem's great grandfather was out getting food for his wife one day, as a young man living in Sudan. While he was out looking for food, he was stolen, taken to the great slave market in Timbuktu (present day Mali), and was bought from a man living in Essaouira. The ma'alem still has part of the chains that his great grandfather wore. It is a chilling story that put a lump in my throat and really made this issue of the Gnawa history come into clearer focus for me.
Now begins the work of transcribing the interview and working it into my paper....
