Tinariwen Albums

Tinariwen Biography

The new album from the roots rock rebels of the Southern Sahara and stars of the Festival in the Desert - Rock and roll rebellion. You know the story. A bunch of renegade teenagers sell their souls to the devil for electric guitars and then proceed to shock the nation and conquer the world. Tinariwen is a story of rock and roll rebellion with a difference.

This particular bunch of teenagers lived in the southern Sahara desert, in northeastern Mali. In the mid 1970s their homeland was devastated by drought. The animals died and the nomadic life which their fore fathers had practiced since the dawn of time wasn't possible anymore.

So they left home and went into exile. There they did whatever was necessary to survive. In the early 1980s these young Touaregs answered Colonel Ghadaffi's call and went off to receive military training in camps in Libya. There they heard rock, blues and soul for first time. They invented a new music, guitar music..revolutionary, rebellious rock'n'roll, based on traditional Touareg melodies and rhythms.

In the early 1990s they fought a real rebellion against the Malian government. Then they made peace and their music began to speak of reconciliation, rebuilding, education, the joys of peace as well as loss and nostalgia.

This is the story of Tinariwen, a group whose music was the soundtrack to a real revolt and is now a poem about the rebellion of the soul and the pride of a desert nation.