Tinariwen
Background
Tune Up tour
Saharan band Tinariwen tour Scotland in March as part of the Tune Up programme.
Tinariwen originated in the Sahara regions of north Africa during its decades of political upheaval.
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There are now seven members of the band – Ibrahim (aka Abaraybone, Raggamuffin Kid), Hassan (aka Abin Abin or the Lion of the Desert), Abdallah (aka Catastrophe), Eyadou, Sarid, Elaga and Mina. |
A number of 'resting' members – Mohammed (aka Japonnais), Kheddou, Foy Foy, Sweiloum, Diarra and Bigga – are still part of Tinariwen's extended family.
The 1960s saw the first Touareg rebellion against the central Mali government. Ibrahim’s father was killed by soldiers for helping the rebels, and the young boy fled the Adrar des Iforas region (northeast Mail) with his grandmother into exile in southern Algeria. He became a wanderer, travelling Algeria and Libya doing odd jobs.
From a young age Ibrahim had been making music on self-made bush guitars, usually made out of a jerry-can, bicycle brake-wire and a stick. He played ancient Touraeg melodies and also imitated the north Malian blues guitar style that was taking off through musicians like Ali Farka Touré and Boubacar Traoré. He was also influenced by the musics of other regions he’d travelled through in his youth.
In 1979, he arrived in the southern Algerian desert oasis of Tamanrasset, a place favoured by exiled Touareg men at the time. It was also where he saw his first ever acoustic guitar, which he persuaded its owner to give it to him. In Tamanrasset he met two other Touaregs from his home region, Hassan Touhami and Inteyeden Ag Ableline. Together with them and two other women singers, Ibrahim formed a band. Its first name included the words 'Taghreft' (a complex word meaning 'the rebuilding', 'the reconstruction' or 'edification', but also the crew or the community who carry out this regeneration) and 'Tinariwen' (simply the plural of 'Ténéré', which means 'desert', 'land' or 'empty place'). Taghreft Tinariwen started to play for the exiled Touareg community and performed at a festival in Algiers. They asked another local band, Sawt El Hoggar, to help them out with equipment, and it was then that Ibrahim played an electric guitar for the first time.
Taghreft Tinariwen started to take on the role of the musical voice of the ishumaren, the exiled Touareg driven from their homes by droughts, political conflict and poverty in the 1970s and 1980s. The revolutionary Touareg movement, the MPA (Mouvement Populaire de l'Azawad), saw the potential in fostering the group's talent, and provided them with money for basic equipment and a rehearsal space. Tinariwen's songs of hope, struggle, pain, exile and nostalgia were carried to the Tamashek-speaking people by a ‘cassette-to-cassette ghetto-blaster grapevine’.
The older members of Tinariwen including Ibrahim, Hassan, Japonais, Kheddou, Inteyeden and Abdallah, took part in the rebellion which broke out in Niger in the summer of 1990.
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When peace came to the southern Sahara in 1996, many of the band members refused offers of reintegration into the Malian army or administration and decided to become full time musicians. |
Tinariwen’s music began spreading beyond their southern Saharan home, starting with a brief tour of France in 1999 and the first Festival in the Desert, followed by their debut CD, Radio Tisdas, and tours of Europe and USA. Their latest album, Aman Iman: Water Is Life was released worldwide in February and March 2007.
Tinariwen will be playing at the following venues:
This Tune Up tour is a tribute to the memory of music promoter Billy Kelly.
| For more information on the Tinariwen tour, visit the Tune Up website. | |