Guitar driven, rolling beats. Quick looping drums, and jazz-like solos. Lyrics that float through your ears and reverberate in your brain. Northan and West Africa. Indigo blue tagelmust. Desert Blues music is mostly in their native language of Tamasheq, but understanding it is not so important as feeling it.
My first exposure to this band was the music video for Imouha – Etran de l’aïr: deceptively calm beginning, then head-bouncing melodies and drums that itch. Crappy greenscreens overlay the band on to Hilux’s doing burnouts in the desert and herds of camels. This video has gotten 2.3m views, so by no means am I ahead of the curve here, but it had soul. It had heart and it had spirit, it felt like something organic and true to the artist. Something the music industry dearly lacks at times.
The genre was defined by the band Tenariwen, with the use of much more traditional instruments, such as the tende drum and three-stringed teherdent Malian lute. Their sound is much slower and more rhythmic, with a complex web of percussion and rhythm. Tenariwen grew in popularity during a revolt against the Mali government, with their cassettes and mp3’s being passed through the camps. Mdou Moctar is an artist known as the “Hendrix of the Saraha”, with more a sound inspired by western rock, while staying grounded in the sounds of the desert.
Desert blues is a genre born from the semi-nomadic life of the Tuareg people of the Saraha. The people existed in a state of oppression and revolt, as desertification and French colonialism changed how they lived and created.This environment was a breeding ground for the spread of political and culturally progressive ideas, which has shaped their music. I acknowledge I am no expert in this genre, and a genre like this cannot be separated from the environment from which it sprouted. Members of Tinariwen fought against oppression and colonialism, fighting for the right to exist. With that came music. Really fucking good music.
