Tinariwen

Tinariwen (Tamashek for “empty places”) is a musical band formed in 1982 in Moammar al-Qadhafi’s camps of Tuareg rebels. They play in the Tishoumaren (“music of the unemployed”) style, and sing mostly in the French and Tamashek languages. Their songs mostly concern independence for their people from the government of Mali. They are said to be the first Tuareg band to use electric guitars. Having recorded many albums available on cassette over their eighteen years, the group recorded their first album for the CD format in December of 2000; the album was known as The Radio Tisdas Sessions and was their first recording available outside of Africa. The Western world first took great notice of Tinariwen due to their performance at Le Festival au Désert, a musical festival held in Tin-Essako, Mali, a remote region of the Sahara Desert, in January of 2001. The band released a second album, Amassakoul (“Traveller”) in 2004, and played concerts in Europe (where they performed one of the highlights of the 2004 Womad Reading) and the United States to support the album. In 2005, they performed at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark, the Finger Lakes Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance in Trumansburg, New York and Cambridge Folk Festival in England. In 2006, Tinariwen played at the Festival International in Lafayette, Louisiana.