Hassan Hakmoun

Despite his globetrotting, Moroccan musician Hassan Hakmoun is a gnawa through and through. Born in Marrakech to a mother who is well known as a gnawa healer, he was performing in the city's famous Jmaa el-Fna square by age four alongside snake charmers and fire-breathing acrobats.

His path to fame, and to realizing his unique mix of gnawa tradition, rock, funk and other elements, was fairly unorthodox. In 1987, he came to New York to perform as part of a traditional ensemble whose tour was funded by the Moroccan government. He fell in love with the city, and without knowing any English or really having any friends in New York, he hid in the airport and purposely missed his flight home.

The previous evening, he had met composer Richard Horowitz—an introduction that soon proved fortuitous. Soon, Horowitz set him up with a place to stay and found him a job playing in a Moroccan restaurant in Greenwich Village. Soon, the buzz on Hakmoun had grown to the point that he was one of the first two musicians signed to Peter Gabriel's hugely influential Real World record label. (The other was qawwali legend Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan from Pakistan.) Hakmoun's 1993 Real World album, Trance, demonstrated his desire to mix the sounds of his heritage with rock style.

Since that fateful decision to hide out at the airport, Hakmoun has been based in the United States, and he remains an adventurous composer with a mesmerizing voice and skilled touch on the sintir lute. Among his noteworthy recording projects are his appearance on the new music group Kronos Quartet's wonderful >Pieces of Africa album (2002), the very traditional Gnawa album The Fire Within (1995) and The Gift (2002), although this last album occasionally drifts into dangerous soft-rock waters. —Anastasia Tsioulcas