As one of the most successful African groups in the world, there’s a high chance you may have already become enamored of Tinariwen. The legendary musicians and soul rebels from the Southern Sahara Desert, led by creative force Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, have a very distinct style - built upon rolling rhythms and hypnotic bluesy guitars. In addition to traditional Touareg music, the group also hails Western artists such as Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix as crucial influences to their sound.
Now, 30 years since their formation and despite some critical time out to join comrades in a savage desert rebellion, the musical nomads from the desert are still going strong. Tinariwen has released four studio albums (including the most recent Imidiwan: Companions last fall), enlist two generations of members and continue to send their message of pride, loss and longing to their mass of die hard fans--which includes Bono and Jimmy Page. The band stops at Los Angeles' Royce Hall on the UCLA campus this Saturday, February 20, before continuing on two more weeks of North American shows.
FILTER was lucky to speak with the band via email* about of a number of things, including their view of the music industry, the first time they heard Hendrix, and the similarities of certain American landscapes to their native Sahara.
*All email answers appear exactly as the band sent them; these are native Africans, remember!
A Q&A with Tinariwen
What does playing in the States mean to you? Are there any opportunities for your band, or your live show, here that you don't experience elsewhere in the world?
Tinariwen: For us, to play in US, of course it is like to be on the world stage international, like in the cinema, to begin to be in the stars system! Welcome and thanks for attention, we have something to try and help world population to feel and to leave a true or another reality...
It's hard sometimes for a touring band to feel like they have a home. Do you ever get homesick?
Yes to be continually on the road give the impression to not have home...in fact we could feel to be at home in many places now! In Arizona and New Mexico, we could feel the same environment like in Sahara's desert. Same preoccupation for the population also !!!
What is your view of the music industry in 2010 as opposed to when Tinariwen was started? Are you glad to be a part of the industry, or would you like to operate outside of it if you could?
The musik industry are trying to keep is interrest ! Today the situation is very complicate and new... we think too much time the institution and multinational label and industry take time to find a new way in the manner to consume the art in general. For us in our career, we started with the ambition to sell some disc, today we know it is not a source to secure our adventure. Are always to play around the world and are trying to adapt our strategy at the real market. To keep the real sens, what we are playing ! The essential emotion is not the money.
How did you react to American blues music the first time you heard it? Were you surprised that it was similar in part to the type of music you play, yet you had never heard it before? How did you react to Jimi Hendrix the first time you heard him?
We did not know before, and not too much still ! Alltimes are good when we listen some good american's blues. Jimi Hendrix was and is still very impressionnant. Anyway, about influence, we are not doing effort to play and developpe our style, it is natural and more and more pure day after day.
What are your plans for Tinariwen in the coming years? Do you want to see its music continue through the new generations, and to have younger musicians carry on your legacy?
To have conscience of our art to help people to feel the sens we love in the life.
02/17/10 >> 
