Introduction

Tinariwen are the kings and queens of ‘Assouf’ or guitar poetry from the
Sahara Desert. Since the first Festival in the Desert in 2001, which they
helped to organise, the band have become one of the most successful and
exciting musical exports ever to emerge from west Africa. The founding
members spent the 1980s holed-up in Libyan military camps dreaming of
dignity and self-determination for their own people, the Kel Tamashek of the
southern Sahara, and singing songs for a entire generation of young Touareg.
Their rolling yearning grooves and uncompromising messages of simplicity and
freedom, distilled over twenty years of struggle, rebellion and exile, have
earned them two BBC World Music Award nominations, countless accolades and
citations, the attention of high-profile fans such as Robert Plant, Santana,
Edge and Thom Yorke, and the enduring respect of their own people. Their
latest album ‘Aman Iman’ made the top 10 albums of 2007 in the Observer
Music Magazine, Songlines, the Independent, Word Magazine, HMV Choice ,
fRoots amongst many others.

“Sensational” – Andy Kershaw. BBC Radio.

“…a mesmeric evocation of the mood of yearning inculcated through years of
exile, all nourished by the vast emptiness of the desert” - The
Independent.

“…one of the most extraordinary and unlikely musical success stories of the
last few years.” - The Daily Telegraph

“This extraordinary band are clearly pushing for more than cult world music
status. They fully merit it.” Uncut

“If you make one discovery this year, make it Tinariwen.” Marie Claire

“….sounds thrillingly unlike anything else on the planet” Q