Asmâa Hamzaoui &

Bnat Timbouktou

Asmaa Hamzaoui is the foremost female ambassador of Gnawa music. With her group Bnat Timbouktou, she delivers a contagious brand of evangelistic desert blues.

Even though women are essential to Gnawa rituals, there has not been many female Gnawa musicians. Asmâa Hamzaoui and the group Bnat Timboktou are part of a new wave who changes this trend.

Hamzaoui was born into a Casablanca family who has lived and breathed Gnawa - her father is a master musician, her mother a dancer. She was taught the guembri as a child, and at an early age, she joined her fathers band on qraqeb and choir, before she started her own group