Photo by Rowan Glass. It was taken at the Taragalte Festival in M’hamid El Ghizlane, Morocco between October 27–29, 2023. Used with permission.

In late October 2023, several thousand people gathered in the dunes outside the small oasis town of M’Hamid El Ghizlane in the Moroccan Sahara. Many were locals from M’Hamid and other towns in the region. However, hundreds of others flocked to the desert from all over the world to attend the 12th edition of the Taragalte Festival, one of the world’s largest annual desert blues festivals.

Harmonizing Tuareg rebellion and desert blues

Desert blues is a music genre pioneered by Tuareg musicians of the Sahara, emerging in the 1980s. The Tuareg are an Amazigh ethnic group inhabiting the Sahara, from the dunes of North Africa to the savannahs of West Africa and the Sahel. For millennia, Tuareg nomads roamed freely across the Sahara as pastoral nomads and traders, walking the same seasonal migration routes long trodden by their ancestors. 

After decolonization inaugurated a new era of state-building in North and West Africa, the Tuareg found themselves divided across national lines for the first time in their history, split between the new countries of Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Libya, Algeria, and Nigeria, with smaller minorities in other adjacent countries. Thousands of Tuareg people were suddenly rendered stateless and marginalized in their ancestral homeland.

Under these conditions, some Tuareg clans turned to rebellion to express their grievances. Since the early twentieth century, there have been no fewer than five major Tuareg revolts and rebellions across the Sahara. Today, Tuareg insurgents continue to play major roles in the ongoing Mali War and Libya Crisis.

The Tuareg are the ancestral inhabitants of the Sahara, which is often one of the main subjects of their songs. Photo by Rowan Glass.

While some took up arms, others picked up guitars and used music to channel their experience of marginalization and exile in postcolonial Africa. The genre they created — a mix of traditional Saharan sounds and hard-driving electric guitar riffs — is known in the Tuareg language as tishoumaren, meaning “the unemployed,” a nod to the hard lives of Tuareg soldiers and musicians alike. Their lyrics, mostly sung in Tamasheq — a dialect of the Tuareg language most widely spoken in Mali — center around the Tuareg experience of exile, rootlessness, and the struggle to hold on to their identity.

International recognition

For several decades, desert blues was a regional genre little known outside of the Sahara and Sahel. Only in the last 20 years has the genre emerged from the desert and established a musical niche in the wider world. The turnout at the 2023 Taragalte Festival in Morocco testifies to the powerful appeal of this unique and rebellious music far beyond its Saharan roots.

For the first few decades of the genre’s development, the songs of the Tuareg rebellion and homesickness were recorded and shared via cassette tapes and flip phones. Only later, when the genre broke onto the international stage, did the pioneers of desert blues gain access to such luxuries as recording studios and record labels.

Desert blues first began to take the world by storm in the early 2000s, when the Malian band Tinariwen (meaning “deserts” in Tamasheq) started performing to progressively larger audiences in Europe and North America. Another important figure in the early history of the genre was Ali Farka Touré, a non-Tuareg Malian musician whose sound nonetheless influenced later musicians in the genre.

Since the days of those early pioneers, numerous new acts have emerged from other North and West African countries that are home to Tuareg minorities, including Niger, Libya, Algeria, and Morocco. Some of the most influential artists include the Nigerien singers Mdou Moctar and Bombino, as well as the Algerian group Imarhan. 

The annual Taragalte Festival held in M’hamid El Ghizlane, Morocco, is today one of the largest desert blues festivals in the world. In addition to its music, the festival is also the site of cultural events, drawing hundreds from across Morocco, neighboring African nations, and beyond. Photo by Rowan Glass.

The popularity of these young artists, and others still emerging, demonstrates the enduring appeal of the sounds and messages of desert blues, both within the Sahara and beyond.

The appeal of desert blues among certain musical circles in Europe and North America may be attributed to its unique sound, blending Western rock with Sahelian rhythms. The lyrical content — seldom translated from Tamasheq — is of secondary importance to most global listeners, who are instead drawn to a perception of musical authenticity in this simultaneously modern and traditional fusion genre.

Sociopolitical relevance

For the Tuareg, however, the origins of desert blues in the experience of exile, rebellion, and marginalization continue to prove meaningful in the context of constant tension and upheaval in the Sahel. Conflict continues to define Tuareg life in countries like Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, where sectarian strife and extremist insurgencies are endemic problems. 

Among the thousands of attendees at the Taragalte Festival were hundreds of non-African visitors, mostly from Europe. The Festival au Désert in Mali, formerly the largest annual desert blues festival, also attracted many international visitors, but it was suspended in 2012 with the outbreak of the Mali War, which continues to this day. Photo by Rowan Glass.

Local conflicts have intensified in the wake of French military withdrawal from the Sahel, the presence of Russian Wagner Group mercenaries in the region, and repeated coups. In addition to these sociopolitical factors, climate change and the desertification of the Sahel also contribute to the destabilization of the region.

For Tuareg communities caught in the middle of these conflicts, the themes and lyrics of desert blues remain as timely as ever.

Still, some desert blues musicians find a reason for optimism and choose to emphasize that their music is not all about the tragic aspects of Tuareg history. Desert blues is not only about the Tuareg experience of exile and nostalgia for lost freedom; it’s also about their love for the desert, the value of preserving their culture and identity, and their hopes for peace.

Despite the uncertain prospects for Tuareg communities in the Sahara and Sahel, the musicians of desert blues also sing of their love for the desert, the value of preserving their culture and identity, and the hope of peace. Photo by Rowan Glass.

The prospects of peace and stability in the Tuareg territories of the Sahara and Sahel remain uncertain. For the moment, the situation of endemic violence shows few signs of abating, and despite decades of repeated rebellion, the Tuareg have come no closer to achieving lasting autonomy in any of the African nation-states they inhabit.

However, one thing remains certain among the so-called “blue men of the Sahara”: the hard-driving sound of Tuareg rebellion will continue to resonate through the desert and far beyond.

For a playlist of Tuareg desert blues, see the link below, and check out Global Voices’ Spotify for more eclectic playlists from around the world.