Rolling Stone Mdou Moctar’s Songs of Revolution and Love
The Tuareg guitar hero on his excellent new album and the ongoing fight for freedom and justice in neocolonial Niger
By WH Moustapha
Mdou Moctar was halfway around the world, in the middle of a lengthy tour in 2019, when his partner gave birth. The Tuareg guitarist, who hails from the Saharan desert City of Agadez in central Niger and is the latest in a growling line of
tishoumaren (loosely translated to “desert blues”) musicians to find a receptive audience abroad, was already missing his hometown “the vibrations of my environment,” as he put it in a recent interview with
On the precipice of international success and new album Afrique Victime, we meet the world’s most uniquely thrilling guitarist at home in Niger, building wells and advocating anti-imperialism
This story was first published on New Frame.
Sahel Sounds is a portal into alternate realities. The small independent label has made music from the greater West African Sahel region accessible over the past decade, including from remote desert areas in Mali, Niger and Mauritania.
Founder Christopher Kirkley runs Sahel Sounds from Portland, Oregon, in the United States and the project encompasses writing, archives, research, film and a record label.
Sahel Sounds shines a spotlight on previously obscure artists from northwestern Africa. It has catapulted many careers by introducing their sounds to a global audience, including Tuareg guitarist Mdou Moctar, all-female guitar band Les Filles de Illighadad, keyboardist Hama and pioneering organist Mamman Sani.
4 March 2013: Malian hip-hop artist Pheno S outside the Askia Mosque in his hometown of Gao. (Photograph by Salym Fayad)
Sahel Sounds is a portal into alternate realities. The small independent label has made music from the greater West African Sahel region accessible over the past decade, including from remote desert areas in Mali, Niger and Mauritania.
Founder Christopher Kirkley runs Sahel Sounds from Portland, Oregon, in the United States and the project encompasses writing, archives, research, film and a record label.
Sahel Sounds shines a spotlight on previously obscure artists from northwestern Africa. It has catapulted many careers by introducing their sounds to a global audience, including Tuareg guitarist Mdou Moctar, all-female guitar band Les Filles de Illighadad, keyboardist Hama and pioneering organist Mamman Sani.
okayafrica Photo: WH Moustapha
The album is a collaboration between Mdou, his band members and his rhythm guitarist
Ahmoudou Madassane.
Afrique Victime by
Mdou Moctar will be released on May 21.
Afrique Victime is an unprecedented collaboration between Mdou, his band members, and Ahmoudou Madassane, who s been his rhythm guitarist since 2008. The album will present an effortless fusion of Saharan and rock music; melding guitar pyrotechnics, full-blast noise, and field recordings with poetic meditations.
You might have come across Mdou on Off White s Imaginary TV channel, who designer Virgil Abloh called, one of my favorite musicians Rn.
Mdou s desert village Agadez, in rural Niger, is his source of inspiration. He attributes his artistic style to traditional Tuareg melodies and YouTube videos of Eddie Van Halen s six string techniques. Mdou has also worked on film projects. He wrote, produced, and starred in the first Tuareg language film: a remake of