|
|
 |
Rebel yell for a new revolution
|
| Click Here to go back. |
Living Scotsman, Rebel yell for a new revolution >>
By: Nigel Williamson
THE dusty, crumbling town of Kidal in Mali on the western edge of the Sahara desert is an unlikely place for a rock 'n' roll revolution. More than 100 miles from the next town, there are no roads, the sand blows mercilessly until it has filled every orifice and goats roam between the squat, mud-brick houses.
Yet this is home to Tinariwen, whose new album Aman Iman (Water Is Life) has found Britain's leading rock critics reaching for the superlatives and handing out the kind of five-star reviews usually reserved for the likes of the White Stripes and Arcade Fire. Prominent Tinariwen fans include Robert Plant (whose guitarist Justin Adams produced the band's new album) and Radiohead singer Thom Yorke, who admitted last year that he had 'borrowed' some of their rhythms for his acclaimed solo album, The Eraser. Now signed to the same label as Travis, Gomez and Embrace, suddenly this bunch of former gun-toting Tuareg rebels who speak no English and are more comfortable sleeping under the stars than in a five-star hotel are the darlings of the indie rock world, a cult world music band who have become bona fide rock stars.
Currently enjoying a sell-out tour of Britain that arrives in Scotland this week as part of the Scottish Arts Council's music touring programme, Tune Up, Tinariwen cut an extraordinary sight in their flowing robes and turbans (which they call cheches) and the sound they make is equally astonishing, their electric guitars creating funky, snaking lines and droning, cyclical patterns that recall the deep blues of the Mississippi Delta but which also boast a timeless, haunting quality that is entirely African.
To try to sell records internationally, most African bands feel a necessity to tone down their ethnicity and make their sound more palatable to European ears by adding synthesisers and other 'western' instruments. Not Tinariwen. Despite the electric guitars, their music is raw, earthy and unmediated. Their prowling rhythms, guttural call-and-response vocals sung entirely in the tribal language of Tamashek, mantra-like chants and loping, hypnotic melodies make no concessions to the ephemeral trends of pop fashionability. And yet, their music seems totally modern and accessible. Somehow in the remote isolation of the Sahara, they have created a sound that, as one reviewer put it, "can be instantly enjoyed by a Western rock audience but which doesn't feel compromised".
Certainly, their dramatic back story has done them no harm. Rock music has always prided itself on its rebellious credentials and Tinariwen are rebels with a cause somewhat more profound than trashing a few hotel rooms and heaving the TV set out of the window. Through their music, Tinariwen have become spokesmen and ambassadors for the Tuareg people, the nomadic tribesmen often called the 'blue men of the Sahara' - so-called because of the dark, inky dye of their turbans that can stain their faces. For centuries they lived an unchanging existence, nomadically roaming the desert with their herds and controlling the trans-Saharan trade routes. But when Mali attained its independence from its old French colonial masters in 1960, the collectivist economic policies of the new regime meant the Tuaregs came under intense government pressure to abandon their old lifestyle. The conflict erupted into bloody rebellion.
"I was four years old when the soldiers shot my father,'' recalls Tinariwen's charismatic frontman Ibrahim Ag Alhabib. "I was there. The next day they killed our entire herd of 80 cattle and 40 camels. Those memories stay with you and I wanted revenge."
AS YOUNG MEN IN the 1970s, the various members of Tinariwen went into exile and took up arms. Living in camps in Algeria and Libya, where they were trained in the art of guerrilla warfare by Colonel Gaddafi's men, they fought a long and bitter battle against the Malian government for Tuareg independence that only came to an end with an uneasy truce in 1996. Even today, there is still a simmering tension in Kidal and machine gun-toting soldiers man checkpoints controlling entry to the town. The most recent skirmish occurred last May when a renegade Tuareg faction revolted against the government in Bamako over an alleged breach of promise on regional aid.
It was while living in the refugee camps that Tinariwen was formed, jamming on guitars around the campfire, writing songs about their struggle and - according to legend - conducting guerrilla raids on army outposts in the desert with Kalashnikovs in their hands and Stratocasters strapped across their backs.
"That's more or less true," Ibrahim says. "For me there was no choice. It was an obligation to fight. But I came to realise that music and songs were more effective weapons."
The leader of the Tuareg rebellion, Iyad Ag Ghali, gave them the money for equipment and soon tapes of their songs roughly recorded on ghetto blasters were circulating around the desert on much-copied cassettes. Tinariwen found themselves cast as revolutionary heroes but following the 1996 truce, the members of the band settled in Kidal.
Their life there today is full of strange juxtapositions. In the back yard of the house owned by guitarist Hassane Ag Attuhami is a huge satellite TV dish. Tethered to it is a goat. Ibrahim, who stands an imposing six feet tall and looks like a cross between Jimi Hendrix and Keith Richards (his nickname in Tamashek translates as 'the ragamuffin kid'), has a Les Paul electric guitar, a mobile phone with a Stevie Wonder ring tone and a Nissan Land Cruiser. Yet the hut in which he lives and where we are talking has no electricity or running water.
How did they first form as a band? "We had one guitar between us initially," Hassane recalls. "But we realised it's an instrument that can speak any language. We had no idea of western tuning so we used an Arabic tuning. Through trial and error we found a way to teach the guitar to speak in Tamashek." What has struck most listeners when encountering the music of Tinariwen is its apparent relationship with the blues of American artists such as John Lee Hooker. Yet they insist that until recently they had never heard of him: in the refugee camps, the only western music they had access to came via a few cassettes by then prominent artists such as the Bee Gees, Boney M and Dire Straits.
"We only heard the blues after we made our first record and it was a huge surprise because we recognised it," Ibrahim says. Today it is standard musicological theory that the roots of the blues lie in Africa, and were transported across the Atlantic in the slave ships. Tinariwen have a far simpler explanation of the musical affinity. "The link comes from misery and poverty and worry," Ibrahim says. "We have a Tuareg word called assouf. It means the music of tears and the music of sadness and nostalgia. The blues is assouf. That's where it come from and that's where Tinariwen come from."
If they are surprised by their popularity with western rock fans they don't show it. "When we first made our music we had a message for the Tuareg youth,'' Ibrahim says. "But we always wanted to tell the world about the nomadic way of life and how it is under threat. We knew our music could speak to the oppressed everywhere in the world."
In a way, much has changed in their lives - and yet very little has changed. Instead of roaming the Sahara with their herds, today they tour the world with their music. "We're still nomads," Ibrahim says. "It's just that we're global nomads now." 03/25/07 >> go there
|
| Click Here to go back. |
|
 |
|
|
|
