Tinariwen (Tamashek: "The deserts", plural of "ténéré" meaning "desert") is a band of Tuareg musicians from the Sahara Desert region of northern Mali. Formed in 1979, they rose to prominence in . .   Expand    Wikipedia

Tinariwen (Tamashek: "The deserts", plural of "ténéré" meaning "desert") is a band of Tuareg musicians from the Sahara Desert region of northern Mali. Formed in 1979, they rose to prominence in the 1980s as the pied pipers of a new political and social conscience in the southern Sahara, and the icons of a whole generation of young Touareg living in exile in Algeria and Libya. In the early 2000s Tinariwen started to gain a following outside Africa, first in the world music community, and then in the wider rock scene, thanks to frequent tours and appearances at major festival in Europe and the USA. After releasing their second CD album 'Amassakoul' in 2004 they become one of the most successful African groups in the world, and won several prestigious awards. They sing about the suffering and exile of their people, the semi-nomadic Kel Tamashek of the southern Sahara, and about their beauty of the desert home. How do you compress a thirty-year epic into a few pages Tinariwen, whose back-story has variously been described as “the most compelling of any band” (Songlines), “the most rock’n’roll of them all” (The Irish Times), “hard-bitten” (Slate.com) and “dramatic” (The Independent), are both a dream and a nightmare for any aspiring music writer: a dream because the most superficial ‘headlines’ of their tale – rebellion, guns and guitars, desert nomads, Ghadaffi, the real Saharan blues – are like easy nuggets of gold to thrill-seeking journalists and literary prospectors. And a nightmare, because none of these clichés really do the band justice or even begin to describe who they are, what they feel or the music they play. The following comprises only the chapter headings, the main way markers of the long road the group have travelled from the wild empty places of the southern Sahara desert to the concert stages of the world.

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