Berber nomads went through war and came out with a band

Wanna hear about the real rebel life?  Before Keddou Ag Ossad gave up his Kalashnikov rifle in favor of a guitar, he took 17 bullets. 

            Ossad and his 10 bandmates met as armed insurgents in Africa during the 40-year Malian civil war.  They were trained by Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhfi.  They were born into the nomadic Touareg tribe, which had been displaced, disenfranchised and violently oppressed since the 1960s. 

            And then they heard Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Nass el Ghiwane, the Rolling Stones of Africa.  The soldiers took up guitars as their new instruments against oppression.  Their rebel songs spread across the continent.

            Now the 10-piece band Tinariwen visits Washington to spread its fusion of electric guitars with traditional rhythms. Tinariwen’s desert blues was first presented to the Western world by British guitarist Justin Adams, a collaborator with Robert Plant, Sinead O’Connor and Brian Eno. 

            The group’s latest album, “Amassakoul,” recorded in Mali with solar-powered gear, is a mix of hope and lament for the lost golden age of the Saharan tribes.

            In 1996, the rebels burned 3,000 rifles and handguns in a symbolic “flame of peace” in Timbuktu.  It was a bittersweet gesture by the Touareg people, who had ruled the southern Sahara for thousands of years.  And now they mean to conquer the world with nothing but guitars.

     -- Bob Massey

GWU Lisner Auditorium, 730 21^st St. NW; Sat., Oct. 30, 8p.m. $20 - $25; 202-994-6800.  (Foggy Bottom – GWU)