At performances by the powerful-voiced Moroccan singer Oum, her rhythmic fire and impressive appearance, one is in the midst of a surprising, Islamic-Western musical encounter, an idiosyncratic fusion of traditional Moroccan Berber music with jazz arrangements, gospel, soul, and Caribbean influences. If the trance-like, hypnotic rhythms of the Maghrebian Gnawa tradition fascinated Bill Laswell and Jimmy Page in their day, they convey narratives and memories of lived community in Oum's singing
