WORLDWIDE: Guitarist Mdou Moctar performed at LEAF last spring, when he observed the ubiquitous appeal of his music and its ability to bridge gaps between disparate cultures. “I invited other ...

Five months ago, Tuareg guitarist Mdou Moctar released a new album called Funeral for Justice, a furious, frenetic fusion of psychedelia, hard rock, and West African desert blues that left critics ...

Fatour Seidi Ghali is surely not the first person to become enamored of an older sibling’s guitar. When she was about ten, her older brother, Ahmoudou Madassane (who currently plays rhythm guitar for ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio - On Thursday night, June 20, the Beachland Ballroom will welcome Mdou Moctar, the band and the singer-songwriter and guitarist who has been referred to as the “Hendrix of the Sahara.” ...

As Mdou Moctar’s band filed into the Guitar Center on Manhattan’s bustling 14th Street one rainy afternoon in late January, bassist Mikey Coltun gave rhythm guitarist Ahmadou Madassane a fraternal ...

Since the Tuareg guitar band Tinariwen from Mali was launched into the international stratosphere nearly 20 years ago, it’s become something of a rite of passage for rock musicians to guest on their ...

Mdou Moctar plays a style of desert blues called “ishumar,” which is technically a new genre. Rock ‘n’ roll audiences have begun to embrace the music of Moctar and his colleagues because there’s ...

Prolific Tuareg songwriter/guitarist Mdou Moctar, born Mahamadou Souleymane, is Muslim, does not drink, and has given up smoking, but his catalog sounds like an intensely cinematic, psychedelic trip.

Last month, on a warm Tuesday evening, Les Filles de Illighadad—a guitar-based Tuareg quartet from western Niger—played for a sold-out crowd at Pioneer Works, an art and performance space in Red Hook, ...

African Voices is a weekly show that highlights Africa’s most engaging personalities, exploring the lives and passions of people who rarely open themselves up to the camera. For Omara Moctar, the ...

Mdou Moctar was halfway around the world, in the middle of a lengthy tour in 2019, when his partner gave birth. The Tuareg guitarist, who hails from the Saharan desert City of Agadez in central Niger ...