• Published 04:44 17.10.11
• Latest update 04:44 17.10.11

Mon, October 17, 2011 Tishrei 19, 5772

The Jimi Hendrix of the Tuareg comes to Tel Aviv

Omara Moctar, who plays the Barby on Tuesday, is compared to the great blues guitarist John Lee Hooker and to African artists like the Tinariwen band and Ali Farka Toure.

By Uri Zer Aviv

"Bombino" is the nickname of Omara Moctar, a singer and virtuoso electric guitarist from the wandering Tuareg tribes of the Sahara Desert in the African country of Niger. Thanks to his special style of playing, combining an ancient musical tradition with influences of electric blues and Western psychedelics, his fine debut album, "Agadez," which came out in April, is winning significant exposure worldwide. On Tuesday October 18, Bombino and his band will perform in Israel for the first time at the Barby Club in Tel Aviv.

In the wake of the album Bombino has been granted the complimentary title of "the desert Hendrix" and he has been compared to the great blues guitarist John Lee Hooker and to African artists like the Tinariwen band and Ali Farka Toure.

	Omara Moctar, right. 'As for the matter of our Islam, we are Sufis and Sufis are peace-seekers.'
	Photo by: Ron Wyman

When Bombino was 13 years old, his family was forced to flee from Niger on a journey of wanderings through Algeria and Libya. He returned to the land of his birth only last year, at the end of the Second Taureg Revolt, which began in 2007 and lasted about two years.

Bombino's music was greatly helped in breaking through the invisible borders of the desert and reaching audiences on other continents by Ron Wyman's documentary film "Agadez, the Music and the Rebellion," which was screened last week at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque. The film is about the city of Agadez, the revolts by the members of the Taureg tribe against the government of Niger and the personal story of Bombino, who named his debut album after the city.

Bombino does not speak English and since I don't know Arabic or French, never mind Tamasheq (the language spoken by the Tuareg and in which Bombino and his band sing ), the interview with him was conducted via Mohammed Serge, the band's percussionist and latterly its interpreter as well.

"We've been playing together for a long time now, since way before the album and the film came out. At first we'd distribute our music on unofficial cassettes at performances. Before the professional recordings for the album there were only those cassettes that people would take to parties. Now that 'Agadez' is being distributed officially we are reaching a large audience."

Why did you name the album after the city of Agadez?

"To honor it. This is an opportunity for us to expose the music of our city and our region. In this way people will know it exists."

Are all of you living there now? "Yes, all the members of the band live in Agadez."

Are you no longer living as nomads, now that you are winning success and appearing around the world at respected festivals?

"We're between nomads and city people because all of us have family both in the bush and in town. So we aren't living exactly in the nomad style with our animals at the moment, looking after them all day long because we have a lot of work in town but we do get to the wilderness areas for vacations, for weddings or to visit our parents."

Not a stone but a huge fruit

Bombino learned to play the guitar from uncles and other relatives who fled with him from Niger and from friends who started playing more modern instruments than the Tuareg tribal instruments, like the electric guitar.

"My style of playing guitar is Tuareg. This is a style built on songs of the Tuareg. We make it more up to date with new instruments and there are a lot of influences in it but it is still traditional music and we still sing in the rhythm of the Tuareg drums and in the Tamasheq language."

Since when have the nomadic Tuareg been playing electric guitars?

"Electric guitars began to come in only at the end of the 1970s and since then we have been gradually adopting them to create the music that until then we had made with acoustic guitars. Intayaden, who died in 1991, was the first Tuareg musician to create protest music on the electric guitar. (Libyan leader Muammar] Gadhafi used him as a soldier in a war that had no connection to him. He is the main musical influence in my life. My strumming style developed from listening to him."

In the film I saw a scene in which you are sitting outdoors and playing and singing and one of you is playing a very strange instrument. A kind of large, round stone inside a basin of water. The musician drummed on the stone with a cloth-covered wooden stick.

"Ah yes," says Mohammed the interpreter without asking Bombino at all. "That's the calabash. I'm the one playing it, and it's not a large stone at all but rather a fruit. We bring it with us to performances abroad." With a cloth-covered wooden stick?

"Yes. This gives low tones."

Where were you exposed to Western music for the first time?

Bombino: "When I was living in Algeria in the 1990s, I saw a lot of clips that I loved of bands like Dire Straits and of Jimi Hendrix. In the tribe, however, the children always participate in the parties that are held at night but only the children who live in the city itself are familiar with Western music. The ones who live in the wilderness know only tribal music."

So, do you have groupies around the world like a real rock star?

He laughs. "In Niger and in Algeria I have lots of groupies and there are also a few abroad but I am married with a small son. I am taken."

Where does the name Bombino come from?

"When I started playing in a band, in 1995, there was someone in the band whose name was the same as mine, so in order to distinguish between us they started calling me Bombino. That was because I was the youngest one in the band," he says. (Bambino is "young child" in Italian ).

The heretic tribes

The origin of the name Tuareg is in Arabic and it means rebels. That is, those who refuse to accept Islam. Although the Tuareg did eventually convert to Islam (in a way different from the usual ), the name and the lowly status of the Tuareg did not change. As descendents of Berber tribes the Tuareg have always been perceived as an unwanted minority in the North African countries. "We had to spend days in the desert because they did not bring us in the usual ways. North Africa is the home of the Tuareg - we have been wandering between countries for more than a thousand years."

Bombino and his band use music to tell the story of Agadez. This is a mission and a great honor for them.

"We are people of peace and in performances abroad we talk a bit about ourselves, about where we come from. There are even a few specific songs that have been translated into English so people will understand the message."

As someone who has experienced a policy of injustice and as a Muslim, how do you feel about coming to perform in a controversial place like Israel?

"No connection should be made between my music and the problem of Israel, Palestine and the Muslim countries. We are coming to Israel because we have been invited to play for people who love the music. We are not bothered by your political problems. After all, we have enough of our own. Apart from that, I don't have enough knowledge to take a position on your issue. We perform everywhere people invite us. And as for the matter of our Islam, we are Sufis and Sufis are peace-seekers."

What do you sing about?

"The song 'Tigrawahi Tikma' ('Bring Us Together ), for example, was written during the Second Revolt. At that time I was in Burkina Faso and I wrote this song for my brothers and my friends who remained in Niger and were persecuted by the government and the army. We lost a lot of people in battle. This is a song in which my heart goes out to them. I sing about how they should remain steadfast and perhaps one day we will be able to establish a quiet system of fighting for our rights. In this song I thank the Tuareg families who somehow managed to bring us up as children in such difficult conditions of war. I will not forget this about them."

Did the Tuareg musicians also carry rifles during the revolt?

"The musicians took part in the rebellion but sometimes the Tuareg fighters preferred the musicians out of battle because the musicians in the tribe have a role in transmitting the message of the desire for peace. Therefore, the fighters were afraid to lose the rebellion's musicians."

What about love songs? I listened to the album without understanding the words and I am certain there are also some of those on it.

"Right. Three of the songs on the album are love songs and there are also two that talk about the desert and its beauty. The song 'Tenere' ('The Desert, My Home' ) describes the difficulties of living in desert conditions but on the other hand also talks about the beautiful sounds you hear when you sit and listen to your animals."

Does it seem to you that you will ever go back to living entirely as nomads?

"Yes. That is my preferred way of living life. Drinking the milk and eating the meat of my animals. A person who lives in the wilderness isn't interested in moving to the city. It's too difficult in the city. You have to pay rent and for water and there is also a lot of noise. I prefer the tranquillity of life in the wilderness."