Sometimes called the Moroccan blues, gnawa has pulled seekers toward it for a century — Paul Bowles, Randy Weston, Jimi Hendrix. Its engine is the sintir, a three-stringed bass lute of wood, camel skin, and goat gut, answered by the iron clatter of qarqaba. “The sintir is powerful,” LanGus says. “You feel it in your heart.” But the sound alone isn’t the thing. “You can’t just play the sintir. You need the qarqaba. You need the spirit.”

LanGus has spent a decade putting that spirit on American stages. In Brooklyn, he founded Innov Gnawa, the ensemble that carried the tradition to Coachella, Red Rocks, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and Terminal 5, and whose collaboration with British producer Bonobo, “Bambro Koyo Ganda,” earned a Grammy nomination in 2018. Their debut, LILA, was cut live in a single take at Daptone’s House of Soul and released on Daptone Records. LanGus has since stepped out front — leading his own Gnawa sounds at Winter Jazzfest and the North Carolina Folk Festival, and holding a Building Bridges residency at Duke.

His solo debut, Gnawa Love (2026), brings in Trinidadian trumpeter Etienne Charles, Brazilian rhythm collective Miamibloco, and producer Proda. The New York Times credits him with keeping “the rugged push of Gnawa music” while layering modern textures; Morocco World News calls him a musical ambassador of peace. The grooves still hypnotize. The purpose hasn’t changed: to heal, to gather, to move a room as one body. Book Now