The Transcendence of Tinariwen
Somewhere in a dazed diatribe, I recall mentioning the revelation of Tinariwen at Coachella. The notes I took during the performance are crude and cryptic. Bear with me. The gist is that the set was one of those times when a battery of hallucinogenic ideas infect your head–the notion of what it means to be swallowed whole by music. To an inveterate cynic, that’s a tough glass of Tuareg tea to sip. But this is sacred sun and sand music that cuts to an atavastic core. Songs that emerge from the water, air, fire, and ether. If you can’t feel it, you might be hollow.
Tinariwen make gangster music. Not like the coke-tasias spouted by your favorite trappers rapper*, but exile, rebel music. Nomadic warriors from Mali, banished from their homeland to drift across the desert, recruited by Kadafi to turn their Kalishnikovs on their countrymen. In the blazing bronze Mojave sun, they seemed at home, subduing the 100 degree heat with white headwraps and hand-drums, floor-length robes, and resurrected guitars tilting towards infinity, dancing slickly with no sweat, thanks to thick Bedouin blood.
Their biography reads like a cross between Oliver Twist and The Odyssey: with the band’s 27-year history a chronicle of poverty, death, and internecine civil war. One of the members has the nickname, “lion of the desert.” Another, Mohammed AG ITLALE aka “Japonais”, is described, as “one of the most respected and revered poets in northeastern Mali, but too wild to be part of the touring party.” They play in the Tishoumaren (”music of the unemployed”) style–that’s some original recession rap shit.
Kanye’s Next Look
Of course, I didn’t know any of this when I saw them in Indio, nor did I need to speak speak French or Tamashek, the languages of their songs. Forgive the cliche, but there’s an inherent universality to their sand-swept rhythms, their inexorable ability to summon the spirits of weary bones and forgotten ancestors, the evidence that their might be some truth to the idea of the Axis Mundi. Words fall flat and hyperbole seems hollower than usual when talking about a group like Tinariwen. Rather than continuing to takamba about architecture, the videos below hopefully explain.
* Though I’m siding with Combat Jack: if your manager is indicted for running a $10 million drug ring, and you’ve shown a systematic inability to rap about anything more than coke, you now get carte blanche to only rap about coke.
Amazon: Tinariwen-Aman Iman: Water is Life
Download:
MP3: Tinariwen-”Matadjem Yinmixan”
MP3: Tinariwen-”Arawan”
MP3: Tinariwen-”Assouf”
Bonus: Mini-Documentary on Tinariwen
Stumble It!
May 20th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
I remember being so pissed off they weren’t broadcasting the Eden performances during Live Aid - specifically because I wanted to see Tinariwen play.
September 21st, 2009 at 12:54 pm
[…] group of people to do anything other than drink expensive coffee and smoke gaunt cigarettes. As I said in May, this is Malian gangsta’ rock: no-frills, warriors disguised as musicians, the type as likely […]