Tinariwen: Mali Rebel Rock and Roll

Tonight in Santa Fe, it is frigid and damp. A storm passed through earlier and snowclouds are forming to the west. Outside the Lensic Theatre, located in the maze of downtown streets among khaki-colored adobe buildings, stand well-dressed and anxious concertgoers in line for tickets. The half-full lobby smells like leather and perfume. The band inside is a group of turbaned, robed Saharans called Tinariwen.

Five light-skinned African men shuffle gently on a stage devoid of decoration—with only amps and microphones—their physical appearance alone making a dramatic statement. Each holds an electric or acoustic guitar, electric bass, or a hand drum. Though Tinariwen’s music is hypnotic, transcendental, and groove-oriented, they appear stoic and self-controlled.

Audience members stand in sharp contrast to the band; they’re dancing like it’s last call.

Halfway through the set, Bob Martin, the Lensic’s general manager, orders the house lights on. The aisle dancers are violating the city’s fire code, he says, and the show would end early if everyone did not return to their seats. “It doesn’t matter what the band wants,” Martin curses. “This is my space.” Some boo. Others sit down. The band appears passive and indifferent, though none of them speak English and likely don’t know why this large, red-faced man is shouting at the audience.

Concert resumed, Tinariwen plays with a renewed fervor, inciting the audience to stand up and shake its collective ass. Songs begin similarly: with an electric guitar melody, muted and distortionless. The band joins in, playing syncopated countermelodies and basslines that are commanding but unobtrusive. A guitarist calls out a line; the others respond in unison. The songs build on a single groove or riff, recalling old blues artists who found innumerable ways to reinvent twelve-bar chord progressions and Bo Diddley beats. When Elvis borrowed liberally from bluesmen in the 1950s, he sparked a musical tradition that links the Beatles and Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. But Elvis was from the wealthiest country on Earth. Tinariwen is from an impoverished place that many of us couldn’t find on a map.

The name Tinariwen translates as “empty places.” Indeed, the band’s sound, image, history and ethnicity are all tied to one of the remotest regions of the world, northern Mali. This unforgiving chunk of the central Sahara was a French colony until the 1960s, when Mali and neighboring Niger gained independence. Tuaregs, nomadic camel herders who have roamed the Sahara for centuries, were unwittingly caught in this power move. They’ve been suffering the consequences of it ever since. The newly formed Malian and Nigerien governments wanted the nomads to settle down and integrate into society. Some did. Others refused. Battles and destitution ensued.

Guitarist/vocalist Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, whose father was killed by Malian fighters, fought for Tuareg independence in the 1970s and ‘80s. He co-founded Tinariwen in 1982 at a Tuareg military training camp, practicing guitar between military exercises. He listened to northern African pop stars, but also to such disparate groups as Euro-dance group Boney M and American country singer Kenny Rogers. Rebel leaders used Tinariwen’s first albums, recorded on cassette tapes and passed around by fans, as anti-governmental war propaganda.