Three generations of poets guitarists sing of their hopes for the Sahara at the Taragalte Festival 2016 in Morocco
TARAGALTE FESTIVAL – Dreaming of a better Sahara
Category: Touareg
BOMBINO – Revving up beyond the sand
What’s more extraordinary however is Bombino’s fame at home. He’s become a bona fide head-turning airtime-hogging star in his own country, not just amongst the Touareg, who mainly live in Niger’s northern deserts, but amongst the youth of the entire nation. That’s something that no other Touareg artists has ever managed to do, not even Tinariwen.
THE CAUSES OF THE TOUAREG UPRISING OF JAN 2012 – The 4th roll of the Tamashek Dice
In truth, neither Ghadafi’s fall nor AQIM nor drugs and insecurity are the prime movers behind this latest revolt. They’re just fresh circumstances in a very old struggle.
SEYDOU CISSÉ of GANDA IZO – “We should have followed the MNLA from the start”
Here’s an amazing news story: http://maliactu.net/mediation-dans-la-crise-malienne-nous-preferons-ouaga-a-alger-dixit-moussa-ag-attaher/ On February 9th last, the MNLA and the Ganda Izo held a joint press conference in Ouagadougou and issued a joint statement announcing a future collaboration between the two movements. The two groups also expressed strong support for Burkina Faso’s mediation in northern Mali and denounced any attempts by…
NIGER MUSIC – Photo Essay
Portraits of Niger Musicians including Bombino, Etran Finatawa, Mamane Barka and Alhousseyni Anviolla taken in around Niamey in 2013
Does the Touareg question have an answer?
A few years ago, on a beautifully calm Saharan evening, I was drinking tea with an old Touareg musician in a garden near Tessalit in the far north east of Mali, a place that has recently been in the news for all the wrong reasons. The musician’s work was gaining popularity throughout Europe and North…
WOMEX 2013 AWARD SPEECH – What the Festival in the Desert did for one dumbfounded tourist
Ladies, gentlemen and fellow Womexicans… On the third of January this year, Ansar Eddine, one of the three armed Salafist groups who ruled over the northern two-thirds of Mali and imposed a brutal form of shari’a law on its people, issued what they called their ‘political platform’. In many ways it’s an extraordinary document, of…
What does Morocco want from Mali?
The big story to emerge from the inauguration of Mali’s new president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, which took place in Bamako’s 26 Mars stadium on September 19th, was the arrival of Mohammed VI, King of Morocco, for the celebrations with a delegation of 300 dignitaries in tow. So stark and brash was the nature of this…
REVIEW of ‘Music, Culture & Conflict in Mali’ – SONGLINES, September 2013
It was a small consolation, but one of the few positives to come out of the occupation of the northern two-thirds of Mali by armed jihadist groups in 2012 was the informed analysis of Andy Morgan. At the height of the crisis, Morgan seemed ubiquitous in the western media – on radio, television and in…
The Ouagadougou Accords – Peace in our time?
An accord between the government of Mali and groups representing the Touareg-led rebellion in the north, primarily the MNLA and HCUA, was signed two days ago in Ougadougou at end of several weeks of intense negotiation. Le Monde has a concise and fairly comprehensive report on this possibly historic event. So is this peace in our time?
