Essaouira Knaoua Festival Highlights Morocco’s Cultural Soft Power

The 27th edition of the Knaoua and World Music Festival in Essaouira runs from 25 to 27 June, gathering about 460 musicians from Morocco and more than 30 other countries. The event showcases Gnawa traditions alongside jazz, blues, African and global sounds, turning the historic coastal city into an international hub for artistic exchange and tourism, and generating noticeable economic benefits for local hotels, restaurants and businesses.

Beyond performances, the festival hosts a series of academic and civic programmes. The “Chair of Transformations” organises round‑table discussions on cultural privacy versus universality, the diaspora of Gnawa music, and its spiritual and healing practices. A human‑rights forum and a partnership with the University of California, Berkeley provide platforms for scholars, artists and policymakers to debate identity, memory and social change, underlining the festival’s role in Morocco’s cultural soft‑power strategy.