Aziz Sahmaoui
Aziz Sahmaoui is not only a prodigious musician, who leads one of the best bands of his time: University of Gnawa, he also carries a whole section of Mediterranean history. Born in Marrakech, he is confronted with the essentials of popular music from the Maghreb, from the most electronic to those that we sculpt in gut or tanned skin. After studying literature, he landed in Paris and founded one of the flagship groups of the 1990s, the Orchester National de Barbès, a machine to scare identity groups and border guards.
With his Senegalese, Maghrebis, French and musicians without fixed origin, Aziz Sahmaoui & University of Gnawa transport us with a solar and irresistible music.
Two albums later, he joined one of the pioneers of cosmopolitan interbreeding, pianist Joe Zawinul, formerly with Miles Davis and founder of Weather Report, who loved only one thing: installing African virtuosos as a whole in the open air.