Gift of Gab: Tinariwen and "Tamiditin"

Today's random song is by the band Tinariwen. The band's name means "deserts" and indeed they are from the Saraha desert region of northern Mali. They were formed in 1979 in Algeria by Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, who witnessed his father's execution at age four, and have been called by Slate "rock and roll rebels whose rebellion, for once, wasn't just metaphorical." Alhabib built his own guitar as a child out of a tin can, a stick and bicycle wire and started to play old Tuareg and modern Arabic tunes. In the late 70s, he started exploring chaabi music, Algerian raï and western pop and rock. In the 1980, Ghadafi wanted to build an elite force of Tuareg fighters and issued a decree for all Tuareg living illegally in Libya to join the Libyan army. In military training camps in Libya, Alhabib met other Tuareg musicians, and the result was a collective they began calling Kel Tinariwen (People of the Desert) later shortened to the band's current name. They moved to Alhabib's home country of Mali in 1989, and a Tuareg uprising against the government led to a peace agreement in which the members of the band were able to leave fighting and devote themselves full time to their music. They began to receive international recognition in the late 1990s, and performed in the touring Festival au Désert as headliners and performed at WOMAD in 2001. After that, they toured regularly, and in 2010 represented Algeria at the South African World Cup. An Arabic uprising in Mali in 2012 and a denunciation of "Satan's music" led to the brief abduction of one of Tinariwen's members. Many fled to the Southwestern US to evade capture and record a new album. Their music is "assouf," traditional Tuareg melodies and rhythms with traditional Tuareg instruments, Berber music, Algerian rai, traditional Malian music, regional pop music, and Western rock. You can hear the desert in their driving electric guitars and chanting style. You can also hear the electric blues, though the band is adamant that they never heard the blues until they began touring the US. This song, Tamiditin, can be found on their 2015 release Live in Paris. The lyrics are of a man lamenting how his girlfriend moves from camp to camp talking to everyone.

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.