Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai is now available! The first ever Tuareg language fictional film, based on the legendary rock-u-drama “Purple Rain,” Akounak or “Rain the Color Blue with a Little Red in it” explores the world of a musician trying to succeed in the raucous subculture of the Niger guitar…
In 2015, I had the opportunity to work on a bit of a dream project entitled Uchronia, an exhibition and recording lying somewhere between conceptual art and experimental ethnography. The process was a series of collaborative "fake" ethnographies (or ethnographic forgeries) - a very flagrant self conscious expression in a…
The next tour of Mdou Moctar is now underway - a short summer tour spanning the European continent. Because of certain visa problems, the tour was nearly canceled, but it fights its way forward. Mdou and the band were scheduled to begin the tour on July 6th, their first tour…
Kader Tarhanine is the musician that you don't know about, but should. The "you" in question is the presumed readership of the blog, which with the wide reach and randomness of the internet could be really anyone, but would assume to exclude most Tuareg's themselves - one of the contradictions…
John Sofakole - Anashua (1989) I found John Sofakole's cassette in a dusty dark corner of the Centre de Formation et de promotion Musicale (CFPM), Niger's formerly prolific center for modern music in Niamey. The CFPM once housed an active studio, and the archives read a bit like detritus of…
Forty years coming, Azna de L'Ader finally has an official release! One of the seminal rock bands from Niger, Azna was hardly known outside of the country - and mostly confined to the Tahoua region of Niger. The LP version features highlights of their recording history, restored and remastered from…