Tinariwen went from Saharan weddings to Grammy-winning acclaim – but violence has forced the desert blues masters into exile. Now, a new generation is stepping in to help ...

Mdou Moctar plays a style of desert blues called “ishumar,” which is technically a new genre. Rock ‘n’ roll audiences have begun to embrace the music of Moctar and his colleagues because there’s ...

Tuareg greats Imarhan released their new album Aboogi today via City Slang. The album features a number of notable guests, including Tinariwen’s Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni, and Super Furry Animals’ Gruff ...

Launched in 2001 by Tuareg guitarists Keddou Ag Ossad and Sanou Ag Ahmed, founding members of the acclaimed world music outfit Tinariwen, Terakaft has honed a leaner, more stripped-down approach by ...

The music of Mali's Tuareg people is music of resistance. Master traders of the Sahara desert for millenia, they've never enjoyed significant political power, and their musical culture reflects that ...

Bombino, a young musician from Niger, makes music both ancient and contemporarywith percussion and vocal components that date back of the Sahara Desert's dunes. Born Omara Moctar, Bombino is of the ...

Over the weekend, Tuareg rebels in West Africa made a rapid advance, capturing the cities of Kidal, Gao, and Timbuktu. If Mali is shaped somewhat like a butterfly, the rebels now claim to control its ...

Raised in the village of Tchintabaraden in rural Niger, Mdou Moctar learned to play music on a guitar he made himself. It had five strings because the plank of wood he used for the fretboard was too ...

In a riot of colour, music and dance, thousands of Tuareg have flocked to the Sebeiba festival that marks the end of an ancient tribal feud and which once a year transforms an oasis town deep in the ...