New York, NY · gnawa · world · jazz

Samir LanGus

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Moroccan-born, Grammy-nominated gnawa musician who apprenticed under Maalem Hamid El Kasri; he plays the three-string sintir bass lute and carries the trance tradition into jazz and funk settings.

Samir LanGus was born in Agadir, Morocco, and moved to New York, where he founded Innov Gnawa with maalem Hassan Ben Jaafer. That group brought the lila repertoire, sintir and qraqeb and call-and-response singing, to New York clubs and to listeners with no background in the tradition. Innov Gnawa's collaboration with Bonobo, Bambro Koyo Ganda, drew a Grammy nomination and put the sound in front of a dance audience. LanGus holds down the bass line and the lead vocal at once, the sintir's three strings doing the work a rhythm section would otherwise cover.

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