Global Rhythm Magazine Volume XIII #11, November 2004

Tinariwen grew out of the Tuareg rebellion in northern Mali during the 1980s and ’90s. Traditional musicians set aside their spike lutes, picked up guitars and sang songs of the struggle in refugee camps and military training posts in Algeria and Libya. Today, in a time of peace, they lead a movement of modern Tuareg music, rich with ties to the sounds and sentiments of blues and roots rock. Veterans, fighters and poets of desert nomad nostalgia, Tinariwen now find themselves in the vanguard of a new world music frontier.