Les Filles de Illighadad are a Tuareg band founded by Fatou Seidi Ghali in Illighadad, a village in the Sahara Desert in Niger. Ghali, it is claimed, is the first Tuareg woman to play guitar professionally. [1]
Les Filles de Illighadad are a Tuareg band founded by Fatou Seidi Ghali in Illighadad, a village in the Sahara Desert in Niger. Ghali, it is claimed, is the first Tuareg woman to play guitar professionally. [1]
Ghali taught herself to play on her brother's guitar. While women did perform music among her people, they didn't play guitar; rather, they played a style of music called tende , centered on a drum made with mortar and pestles, a style that influenced Tuareg guitar playing but isn't generally part of the music played by Tuareg men. Les Filles de Illighadad incorporate tende with guitar playing, "asserting the power of women to innovate using the roots of traditional Tuareg music". [2] Ghali usually plays with her cousin, Alamnou Akrouni. [3]
Ghali and the Filles have recorded three albums with Christopher Kirkley, for his Sahel Sounds label. Recordings were made in the open air, and consisted of recordings of Ghali in the daytime, and the Filles playing in the village at night. Following the release of the first album, the Filles did a short European tour, and Ghali used her earnings to buy more cattle. [4] Mariama Salah Aswan left the group to begin a family; she was replaced by the second Tuareg woman guitarist, Fatimata Ahmadelher. [1] The group toured in the US in the fall of 2019, playing in New York [5] and Detroit, [6] as a four-piece band consisting of Ghali, Akirwini, Ahmadelher, and Gahli's brother, Abdoulaye Madassane, on rhythm guitar. [5] The album At Pioneer Works was recorded at the Pioneer Works arts center in Red Hook, Brooklyn in October 2019 during this tour. [7]
The band's music was described by Amanda Petrusich as "heavy, meditative, and tender", and reminiscent of "players like R. L. Burnside or Otha Turner, who were directly informed by African music seeded in the American South by enslaved Africans". [5] Writing for The New York Times, David Renard stated that the group's sound "takes the Tuareg guitar music sometimes referred to as desert blues, brought to the West by breakthrough artists from the region like Mdou Moctar, Bombino and Tinariwen, and fuses it with tendé... The result is repetitive and hypnotic, and conveys something spiritual and solemn... but also transmits a sense of joy and playfulness that goes back to the music's roots in village life." [7]
The Tuareg people are a large Berber ethnic group that principally inhabit the Sahara in a vast area stretching from far southwestern Libya to southern Algeria, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. Traditionally nomadic pastoralists, small groups of Tuareg are also found in northern Nigeria.
The music of Niger has developed from the musical traditions of a mix of ethnic groups; Hausa, the Zarma-Songhai, Tuareg, Fula, Kanuri, Toubou, Diffa Arabs and Gurma and the Boudouma from Lac Chad.
Tinariwen is a collective of Tuareg musicians from the Sahara region of northern Mali. Considered pioneers of desert blues, the group's guitar-driven style combines traditional Tuareg and African music with Western rock music. They have released nine albums since their formation and have toured internationally.
Agadez, formerly spelled Agadès, is the fifth largest city in Niger, with a population of 110,497 based on the 2012 census. The capital of Agadez Region, it lies in the Sahara desert, and is also the capital of Aïr, one of the traditional Tuareg–Berber federations. The historic centre of the town has been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
The Festival au désert was an annual concert in Mali, showcasing traditional Tuareg music as well as music from around the world between 2001 and 2012. It was founded and directed by Manny Ansar, and attracted thousands of visitors, bringing a huge boost to the economy.
Abalak is a town located in the Tahoua Region, Abalak Department of northern Niger. It is both a town and Commune: a local administrative division. It is the seat (Chef-lieu) of Abalak Department, one of eight subdivisions of Tahoua Region. The town had a population of less than 13,000 at the 2001 census.
Bani-Bangou is a town in southwestern Niger, in rural northern Ouallam Department, Tillabéri Region. It is the capital of the rural commune of Bani-Bangou. On the main highway from Ouallam on the route to the Malian border town of Andéramboukane. It is 135 km northeast of Ouallam and 70 km by road from Mali. It around 200 km cross country from Niamey. The town is the seat of a "Rural Commune" of the same name, one of four rural communes in the department. Nearby villages include Gorou, Bassikwana, and Tondi Tiyaro Kwara to the north; Koloukta and Dinara along the highway west; Ouyé to the southeast.
Tishoumaren or assouf, internationally known as desert blues, is a style of music from the Sahara region of northern and west Africa. Critics describe the music as a fusion of blues and rock music with Tuareg, Malian or North African music. Various other terms are used to describe it including desert rock, Saharan rock, Takamba, Mali blues, Tuareg rock or simply "guitar music". The style has been pioneered by Tuareg musicians in the Sahara region, particularly in Mali, Niger, Libya, Western Sahara, Algeria, Burkina Faso and others.
Andéramboukane is a town and cercle in Ménaka Region, Mali. It lies at the extreme east of the country, several kilometers north of the Nigerien border. It was previously a commune in Ménaka Cercle but was promoted to the status of a cercle when Ménaka Region was implemented in 2016.
Hawad, sometimes Mahmoudan Hawad, is a Tuareg poet and author born in the Aïr region of Niger and who currently lives and publishes from Aix-en-Provence, France. Hawad deploys a method he calls furigraphy to create space in his poetry and to illuminate certain themes. Common themes of his work include thirst, movement, wandering, anarchy, and political themes related to Tuareg politics in the region. He is married to Hélène Claudot-Hawad, a Tuareg scholar and translator of Hawad's poetry into French. He has published a number of poems, epics, and other literary works primarily in French, but translations have increased in recent years with an Arabic translation of Testament nomade by prominent Syrian poet Adunis.
Mahamadou Souleymane, known professionally as Mdou Moctar, is a Tuareg songwriter and musician based in Agadez, Niger, who performs modern rock music inspired by Tuareg guitar music. His music first gained attention through a trading network of mobile phones and memory cards in West Africa. He sings in the Tamasheq language. Moctar's fourth album, Ilana: The Creator, released in 2019, was the first to feature a full band. He plays guitar in the takamba and assouf styles.
Sahel Sounds is an American record label, based in Portland, Oregon which specializes in music from the southern part of the Sahara desert.
Ahmed Ag Kaedy is a Malian guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is the leader of the group Amanar de Kidal. Originally from Kidal, he is a member of the nomadic Tuareg people, whose distinct style of rhythm and use of the guitar is often referred to as Tishoumaren, or desert blues. He is one of the main characters in the 2016 documentary Mali Blues.
Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai,, is a 2015 Niger drama musical film directed by Christopher Kirkley and co–produced by Sahel Sounds, L'Improbable and Tenere Films. It is the world's first Tuareg-language fiction film. The film is based on the real life incidents of famous musician Mdou Moctar.
Abdallah Oumbadougou was a guitarist from Niger. He was one of the founders of the ishumar genre of the desert blues, a politicized, guitar-driven musical genre of the Kel Tamasheq people of North Africa's Sahel.
Afrique Victime is the sixth album by Tuareg musician Mdou Moctar. It was released on 21 May 2021 as the artist's first album with Matador Records and received positive reviews from international publications including Rolling Stone, Paste, Pitchfork, and The Guardian. The album is sung almost entirely in Tamasheq, though parts are in French.
At Pioneer Works is the third record and first live recording by Niger-based quartet Les Filles de Illighadad, released through Sahel Sounds in July 2021. It was recorded in Brooklyn at the Pioneer Works cultural center.
Zerzura is a 2017 Nigerien western film directed by Christopher Kirkley and co-produced by director himself with Rhissa Koutata, Ahmoudou Madassane, and Guichene Mohamed. The film stars Habiba Almoustapha with Ahmoudou Madassane, Ibrahim Affi, and Zara Alhassane in supporting roles. It is an ethnofiction shot in the Sahara desert, where a young man from Niger leaves home in search of an enchanted oasis.
Mamman Sani is a Nigerien-Ghanaian musician. He first recorded his electronic organ music in 1978 but it remained largely obscure and undiscovered until 2013. He is considered to be an early pioneer of synth music in Niger. Sani found unlikely fame in Denmark, regularly appearing in the playlist of Copenhagen bars.
Music from Saharan Cellphones is a compilation album released by Sahel Sounds of different songs by various musicians from Western and Sub-Saharan Africa.
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