Morocco’s first female Gnawa musician, Asmâa Hamzaoui is a leading player in a new wave of women now performing this traditionally male-only brand of evangelistic desert blues. With her all-female ensemble Bnat Timbouktou she creates a soundscape of rhythmic percussion with her expressive voice and masterfully played guembri (a plucked lute) at the heart of the performance. Gnawa is a set of musical events and therapeutic rituals that mix the secular with the sacred. It has now been UNESCO listed as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. “To us, gnawa stands above all other kinds of music,” says Hamzaoui. “It’s our childhood. It’s spiritual, healing and it makes you feel grounded.” Although a traditionalist in her music, Hamzaoui is also a trailblazer, taking Gnawa to places such as the Roskilde Festival in Denmark, BAM in Barcelona and Kaustinen in Finland to keep it alive.