My Friend, I beg of you,
Go gently.
We still have a country,
Albeit thirsty and in pain,
But it will turn green again,
And grow new branches.
There will be shade again,
And beneath it we’ll take our rest.
An old woman and a boy
Came by here to implore you
To come together and unite.
All of you, without exception.
- Touhami Ag Alhassane
“SAGHERAT ASSANI” is a traditional song carried from Sudan to the Sahara. Japonais (one of the band founders who died in 2021) and myself were in Al Kufrah (a city at the border between Sudan and Libya) in 1989. At that time, I was beginning to learn the guitar. We met a musician who was playing this song. We loved it so much that Japonais learned it, then played it again and again, allowing it to travel and endure. This version features Sulafa Elyas, an outstanding Sudanese singer and oud player now living in exile in France”
— ABDALLAH AG ALHOUSSEYINI
Tinariwen’s desert blues has always evoked a nomadic way of life with swaying, caravan-like rhythms, its bright guitars and its hazy, distance-crossing vocals. Despite the Grammys, the world tours, the genre-crossing, star-studded guest cameos, the band, at its best, has always sounded like a group of dusty brothers-at-arms, bivouacked down for the night, campfire smoldering, the music carrying though empty dunes, reaching, maybe, all the way to home. And indeed that’s how they started, around a pair of Tuareg warriors temporarily enlisted in Qaddafi’s army, fighting in northern Mali and southern Algeria during the day and making music at night. Tinariwen’s members have experienced the worst of the global migration crisis, in war, displacement and closed borders, but also the best, bringing their hallucinatory grooves to Europe, North America and Asia and accumulating global fan base.
This latest album comes as Tinariwen is barred from playing its planned string of 2026 shows in the United States, thanks to racist travel bans, but the band is busy elsewhere, performing before thousands in India and making the rounds of the European capitals. That’s our loss—and also theirs. They could use the money. We could use the dreaming, drifting, hip-moving transport that a live Tinariwen can provide.
Meanwhile, we have Hoggar, a stripped down iteration of the band’s hand-clapping, intricately rhythmed, head-nodding art. There are fewer guests than usual, just long-time collaborator José González and the Sudanese singer and oud player Sulafa Elyas and some younger players from Mali and thereabouts. Elyas’ “Sagherat Assani” is a long-time favorite of Tinariwen’s musicians. They first learned the song in a Sudanese/Libyan border town and played it as they travelled throughout the sub-Saharan region. Now Sudanese native and current French exile Sulafa Elyas accompanies them on the piece, her sweet trilling voice and delicate oud figures giving it a lightness that belies the suffering in that war-torn region.
José González puts his mark on his cut, “Imidiwan Takyadam,” partly by singing his verses in Spanish, his light, gamboling guitar in contrast to the droning smoke and shimmer of Tinariwen’s parts. The song puts the immigrant’s struggle in global context, considering not just the African places left behind, but the unfamiliar European villages where refugees may find themselves. Says Tinariwen founder Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, “This is a song I wrote long ago, yet today its echo feels stronger than ever. It speaks of our people, the Tamasheq, scattered across distant lands, slowly losing the threads of their culture and their ancestral heritage. It is a call to memory and to conscience — a reminder not to forget our brothers and sisters who endure suffering under the tyranny of short-sighted and foolish leaders.”
That’s heavy stuff, but the music is often not. Cuts like “Erghad Afewo” keen and wail ecstatically, the eerie vocals taking you to other, more triumphant places, the insistent rhythms urging your feet and butt to move. A Tinariwen concert is always a celebration, and since we won’t have access to that, the transporting joys of Hoggar will have to do for now.
Dans l'immensité du Sahara algérien, près de Tamanrasset, Yasmina découvrit les empreintes.
Elles apparaissaient et disparaissaient dans le sable ocre, serpentant entre les dunes comme un secret murmuré par le siroco. Des traces étranges, ni humaines ni animales, qui semblaient danser autour des majestueuses formations de grès sculptées par les millénaires.
Son guide touareg s'était arrêté net en les voyant. "C'est impossible", avait-il murmuré en tamachek avant de répéter en arabe. "Ces tours de pierre sont là depuis que mes ancêtres gardaient les caravanes."
Pourtant, les empreintes racontaient une autre histoire. Elles suggéraient que durant la nuit, quand les étoiles du Hoggar brillaient avec une intensité surnaturelle, les anciens djinns du désert prenaient forme. Ils descendaient des hautes tours de grès pour marcher dans le sable, protégeant les trésors des caravanes perdues, enfouis sous les dunes mouvantes.
Yasmina suivit les traces jusqu'à la base de la plus imposante des formations rocheuses. Là, gravée dans la pierre rouge et polie par des siècles de vents sahariens, elle découvrit une inscription en tifinagh : "Les gardiens du désert ne dorment jamais."
Le soleil commençait à disparaître derrière l'horizon infini, embrasant le ciel d'Algérie de couleurs de feu. Bientôt, la nuit tomberait sur le Sahara. Et peut-être, si elle avait le courage d'attendre dans ce silence immense, Yasmina verrait-elle les gardiens reprendre leur veille éternelle sous la voûte étoilée du désert.
Marseille. Au MuCEM (côté Fort Saint-Jean), une petite expo : « Amazighes » sur les cultures berbères, kabyles, touareg et même guanches des Canaries. Adjectif au féminin car ces cultures sont particulièrement véhiculées dans la sphère féminine, moins acculturée.
- pendentifs amulettes « khamsa » - Tunisie ou Maroc, XXe s. + Aurès, Algérie, fin XXe s.
- pendentifs en argent - Maroc, début XXe s.
- coffre kabyle - Algérie, fin XIXe s.
- ceintures - Maroc, XXe s.
- voile de mariée « idaou kensous » - Maroc, fin XIX-début XXe s.
- natte touareg, écran de tente « esseber » - Hoggar algérien, avant 1970 ; natte - Gran Canaria, 200-1400
- mannequin de rogations pour pluie « talghunja » - Merzouga, Maroc, XXIe s ; 3 poupées kabyles
