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: Features
Full length journalistic features
MBONGWANA STAR – Kinshasa’s Afro-junk revolutionaries
If the master plan succeeds, Mbongwana Star could become the Trojan Horse that penetrates the bastion of the world’s indifference (and revulsion and paranoia) and lifts the curse to bring that creative power out of rue Kato, the Beaux Arts, and other parts of Kinshasa. “The Beaux Arts is like a town within a town,” says Renaud. “Mbongwana Star has started rehearsing there and there’s a correlation with visual artists, stylists, people working on logos etc. It’s this kind of electric movement, this new vibe in Kinshasa that we’re trying to mix in with the music and the image.”
SOUAD MASSI – What can Ibn Arabi do against Daesh?
“I think we’re lacking a lot of tolerance,” says Souad Massi, “and I think that we must give the power to the learned people in Islam… They’re the ones who will show us the way.”
MUSIC AND JIHAD IN MALI – “Mali without music is an impossibility”
All the musicians I spoke to agreed; Mali without music would be like Egypt without cotton, a bird without wings, a man without a soul.
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.
KINSHASA SYMPHONY – The art of Haydn and debrouillardise
If the musicians in the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste are masters of individual survival, the orchestra itself is an epic example of debrouillardise, of thinking the impossible and then just doing it.
SONGHOY BLUES – “Without patience, nothing is possible”
Garba Touré and his guitar were a familiar sight on the streets of Diré, a dusty town on the banks on the Niger River, upstream from Timbuktu. But when armed jihadists took control of northern Mali in the spring of 2012, he knew it was time to leave.
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.
TINARIWEN – Guitar poets in Nueva York
Ibrahim battles through the show, smiling only once. His grave immobile presence is like a challenge to the hip bubbling New York crowd. To do what? To imagine a simplicity and a silence that their city will never know.
FESTIVAL ON THE NIGER 2014 – Ghostboy and me
Last year, the Festival on the Niger had been cancelled at the last minute. French transport planes full of soldiers and hardware had landed in Bamako only two weeks before the festival was due to start. Now peace was back. So was music. The jihadists tried to ban all music except Quranic chanting in the north of Mali. But it just came back like Whack-a-mole. How could it not?
