Tinariwen – Lulla
https://amf.didiermary.fr/tinariwen-lulla/
Lulla is a song about the conflicts in Mali, on Tinariwen‘s album “Imidiwan: Companions” released in June 2009. It’s the fourth studio album by the Tuareg band.
Edited 7d ago
desertblues
Ali Farka Toure & Ry Cooder – Talking Timbuktu
https://amf.didiermary.fr/ali-farka-toure-ry-cooder-talking-timbuktu/
Mon correspondant allemand m’a offert cet album, Talking Timbuktu, pour mon anniversaire, il y a des années. Je me suis littéralement forcé à l’écouter, car c’était un cadeau…
Je vais probablement me faire lyncher, mais je n’ai jamais accroché. C’est beau, c’est bien fait, etc.
Le côté guitare et “desert blues" [...]
#AliFarkaToure #Blues #DesertBlues #FullAlbum #Mali #Songhai
Edited 7d ago
Tinariwen – Hoggar
https://amf.didiermary.fr/tinariwen-hoggar/
Released in March 2026, “Hoggar” is Tinariwen’s tenth studio album.
“Tinariwen evolve once again on their brand new album, connecting with a younger generation of Tuareg musicians to produce a vibrant album of undulating grooves rooted in their nomadic community.”
Fierce advocates for their people’s nomadic culture that exists in the desert borderlands between [...]
Edited 175d ago
Songhoy Blues – Al Hassidi Terei
https://amf.didiermary.fr/songhoy-blues-al-hassidi-terei/
Having fled Gao in 2012, when the city fell to fundamentalists who banned music, four Jimi Hendrix fans founded Songhoy Blues as a response to the obscurantism. Discovered by M.-A. Moreau and Nick Zinner, under the wing of Damon Albarn, influenced by Ali Farka Touré and Baba Salah, their debut album […]
Edited 328d ago
Ali Farka Touré live
https://amf.didiermary.fr/ali-farka-toure-live/
At least 3 extracts from various documentaries showing Ali Farka Touré live, filmed in the 80s. 3 songs are included: Yulli, Ketiné and Ai Du.
Ai Du is on the album Talking Timbuktu, recorded with Ry Cooder.
#AliFarkaToure #DesertBlues #LiveMusic #Mali #OldAfricanMusic
Edited 317d ago
Mdou Moctar – Funeral for Justice
https://amf.didiermary.fr/mdou-moctar-funeral-justice/
Nigerien Rock band Mdou Moctar released an album in May 2024, “Funeral for Justice”, with eponym single.
Recorded at the close of two years spent touring the globe following the release of 2021 breakout ‘Afrique Victime,’ it captures the Nigerien quartet in ferocious form. The music is louder, faster, and more wild. The guitar solos […]
Edited 309d ago
Tinariwen – Tenere Den
https://amf.didiermary.fr/tinariwen-tenere-den/
From the “Amatssou” album (May 2023) by Tinariwen, this new single “Tenere Den” connects Desert Blues and Country Music. A press release explains that the song “pays homage to the Tuareg revolution in the Kel Adagh region of Mali.” Some people have commented that Tinariwen have always been a country band, albeit a North African […]
Təlle Talyadt, the new album by Hamouna Isewlan released last Novenber: an ode to the desert mountains.
https://hamouna.bandcamp.com/album/t-lle-talyadt
Boubacar Traoré – Duna Ma Yelema
https://amf.didiermary.fr/boubacar-traore-duna-ma-yelema/
Boubacar Traoré (born 1942 in Kayes, Mali), also known as “Kar Kar“, is a Malian singer, songwriter, and guitarist.
Duna Ma Yelema (The World Has Not Changed) is an extract from “Je Chanterai pour Toi”, a film by Jacques Sarasin in 2001.
Edited 299d ago
Aratan N’Akalle – Bariz
https://amf.didiermary.fr/aratan-nakalle-bariz/
After fleeing the crisis in North Mali, Aratan N’Akalle (“children of the country”) met in refugee camps in 2012. “Bariz” is a perfect image of the group’s work: a drop of Tamasheq culture which goes beyond the music that these young people want to transmit.
A rhythmic mix of blues and rock, the single sets the […]
Edited 299d ago
Al Bilali Soudan – Djaba
https://amf.didiermary.fr/al-bilali-soudan-djaba/
Al Bilali Soudan are griots from the Tombouctou (Timbuktu) region of Mali. This is a family orchestra of fathers and sons, uncles and cousins, led by Abellow Yattara, a master of the tehardent – the Tamasheq word for the three-stringed n’goni.Yattara has been a prominent figure for over 40 years. He played on Ali Farka […]
Edited 298d ago
Music from Saharan Cellphones
https://amf.didiermary.fr/music-saharan-cellphones/
Music from Saharan cellphones is a compilation, released in 2011, of music collected from memory cards and cellular phones in the Saharan desert. In much of West Africa, cellphones are used as all purpose multimedia devices. In lieu of personal computers and high speed internet, the knockoff cellphones house portable music collections, [...]
#Compilation #DesertBlues #Mali #Morocco #Niger #Rock #Tuareg #Global
Edited 1y ago
Tinariwen (and Guests) – Nannuflay
https://amf.didiermary.fr/tinariwen-guests-nannuflay/
Nannuflay (“Fulfilled”) from Tinariwen‘s album Elwan in 2017. With American rockers Kurt Vile and Mark Lanegan as guests.
In the Sahara Desert, an old Tuareg man comes back to the camp where he grew up for a party. He remembers the joys and the torments of the nomadic life he lived with a friend who […]
Edited 210d ago
Bombino – Deran Deran Alkeir
https://amf.didiermary.fr/bombino-deran-deran-alkeir/
Bombino (Omara “Bombino” Moctar) is an internationally acclaimed Tuareg guitarist and singer-songwriter from Agadez, Niger. His music frequently addresses Tuareg geopolitical concerns and is sung in Tamasheq, the Tuareg language.
Deran is Bombino’s follow up record to 2016’s Azel. The album was recorded in Casablanca, Morocco and released in 2018. “It was almost [...]
Edited 210d ago
Guitars on the road…
When you’re a #DesertBlues musician, there aren’t so many ways to travel with your guitars…
Source: unknown
Super11 – raw Desert Blues
https://amf.didiermary.fr/super-onze-raw-desert-blues/
If you like pure raw desert blues, this video is for you, as it’s a perfect origin for so many contemporary artists from the Sahel region.
“Super Onze are the real roots of desert blues – Mali’s equivalent of Congotronics. This is how it all sounded before the electric guitar came in to the equation: […]
Edited 259d ago
Bombino – Nomad (EPK)
https://amf.didiermary.fr/first-listen-bombino-nomad/
“Nomad”, released by Omara “Bombino” Moctar in 2013, follows his first recorded album “Agadez” in 2011.
Omara “Bombino” Moctar, a young Tuareg guitarist and songwriter, was raised during an era of armed struggles for independence and violent suppression by government forces. His electrifying jams capture the spirit of resistance and rebellion [...]
Edited 255d ago
Ali Farka Toure – Savane
https://amf.didiermary.fr/ali-farka-toure-savane/
More info on the 20th anniversary edition of this album.
Edited 150d ago
Tamikrest – Assikel
https://amf.didiermary.fr/tamikrest-assikel/
The iconic Saharan rock band’s sixth album, Assikel, is by turns intimate, raw and deeply atmospheric. Recorded on analogue tape, with the band playing live and direct, the album fully captures their instinctive interplay and hypnotic presence.
Songs of resistance, community and longing. Music for this moment.
Featuring: Ibrahim Ag Alhabib (Tinariwen)
Edited 148d ago
Anansy Cissé – Aïgouna
https://amf.didiermary.fr/anansy-cisse-mali-desert-blues/
Anansy Cissé re-works the West African Desert Blues genre with a new, agitated attitude and souped-up guitar distortions.
Featuring the soku fiddle playing of Zoumana Tereta and accompanied by n’goni, bass and calabash, Cissé’s sound harnesses musical traditions and spits it out anew, taking us into “Mali Overdrive” (2014).
[…]
Edited 243d ago
Anansy Cissé – Foussa Foussa
https://amf.didiermary.fr/anansy-cisse-foussa-foussa/
Four years in the making, Anoura (The Light) sees the return of Anansy Cissé in 2021. Drawing inspiration from the tumultuous upheaval in his homeland, Anansy offers a positive message in these songs of love, respect and hope for better times ahead.
Remarkably Anansy Cissé began working on this, his […]
Edited 243d ago
Tinariwen – Emmaar
https://amf.didiermary.fr/tinariwen-emmaar/
Emmaar (“the heat on the breeze”) is the sixth album by the Tuareg band Tinariwen, released in 2014 and their first full album not recorded in Africa.
After Tinariwen’s previous album won the Grammy Award for Best World Music Album in 2012, the band was displaced by a Tuareg rebellion in their home region of […]
Edited 142d ago
Mdou Moctar – Tala Tannam
https://amf.didiermary.fr/mdou-moctar-chismiten-tala-tannam/
2 videos released for the album “Afrique Victime” by Mdou Moctar in 2021.
If people have gotten to know Mdou Moctar as a rock band, there is a whole different set of music in this album on acoustic guitars.
With “Afrique Victime” the prodigious Tuareg guitarist and […]
Edited 142d ago
Orchestre National Mauritanien Ahl Nana
https://amf.didiermary.fr/orchestre-national-mauritanien-ahl-nana/
Ahl Nana, l’Orchestre National Mauritanien, in lost recordings that defined the modern sound of the Sahara.
This album contains the first recordings of modern music from the Sahara and mark the birth of the genre that is known in the West as ‘Desert Blues’ or ‘Desert Rock’. Ahl Nana changed the folk music of the […]
Edited 239d ago
Tamikrest – Awnafin
https://amf.didiermary.fr/tamikrest-awnafin/
An iconic Saharan Rock band, Tamikrest was formed in 2006 by Ousmane Ag Mossa, Cheikh Ag Tiglia, and Aghaly Ag Mohamedine in Tinzawaten, on the border between Algeria and Mali, inspired by the musical heritage of Tinariwen, and driven by the desire to amplify the oppressed voice of the Kel Tamasheq (Tuareg) people. It’s more Desert Rock, than Blues… […]
