Jazz Articles about Tinariwen

Tinariwen - Then and Now

by Geno Thackara
June 14, 2023

Tinariwen sounds just like the deserts they are named for, hard-baked and rough as sand-scoured stone. It's the natural product of decades of life for this amorphous collective of Touareg nomads--living in and out of exile, surviving (and sometimes fighting in) people's revolutions, and finding time in between to put their tribes' lives and experiences into songs. Crossing earthy percussion and call-and-answer chants with electric bass and dusty-toned guitar, it's simply a sound as gritty and primal as their existence ...