WOMAD

Gnawa Diffusion

From France

Gnawa Diffusion are a purist’s nightmare. This bunch of young chaps from the Alpine city of Grenoble regard all notions of musical purity as redundant; accordingly, the music they make is the product of the citizens of this planet busily exchanging ideas and traditions. Hence their borderless mix of rap, ragga, reggae, rai and chaabi, a brew that absolutely sizzles live. Like other Europe-residing contemporaries like Orchestre National De Barbes, U-Cef and Hamid Baroudi, the band’s sound is that of the immigrant experience – one’s eye on the party, the other’s on the political. Not that Gnawa Diffusion are content to tell it like it is from their safe European home. They’ve played extensively across the Middle East and North Africa, including a couple of tours in the sometimes explosive atmosphere of Algeria. And wherever they play, their cross-bred sound isn’t diluted a drop. Recommended to non-purists everywhere.