Tinariwen

Tinariwen's back-story has variously been described as “the most compelling of any band” (Songlines), “the most rock’n’roll of them all” (The Irish Times), “hard-bitten” (Slate.com) and “dramatic” (The Independent). Indeed the tale of these poet-guitarists and soul rebels from the Sahara, with their almost mythical stories of guns and guitars, rebellion, Ghadaffi and the real Saharan blues, spans a long road from the wild empty places of the southern Sahara desert to the concert stages of the world. In the northern desert regions of newly independent Mali, the brutal suppression of the 1963 Touareg uprising by the Malian army still haunts the local population like a nightmare. Of the many stories of suffering and incidents of callousness that survive in the collective memory, the one that is crucial to our story concerns Alhabib Ag Sidi, a mason and trader, who was arrested in front of his family in the village of Tessalit, taken to the barracks in Kidal and executed for aiding the rebels. His young four-year old son Ibrahim witnessed this before being forced into exile to Algeria with his family. Ibrahim Ag Alhabib grew up in refugee camps in the deserts ... more...