| FESTIVAL AU DESERT |
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| Features - Life | |
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TRACKS IN THE SAND Words by and photos by Helen Gilchrist It's midday in the Sahara Desert and it's hot as hell. About 25 people are crammed inside a small Touareg tent. Haira Arby, 'the nightingale of the north', is singing: her ethereal voice soars above the rousing rhythms of the calabash drum, electric guitar, teherdent lute, handclapping, and vocal accompaniments. Songhai and Bambara people sing, clap and drink tea with Touaregs and Westerners. Haira pours water onto the taut skin of her djembe drum and taps out a slow, mesmerising beat. As she opens up her incredible lungs once again, a bearded German squeezes in and starts playing a small trumpet in perfect harmony. She looks in wonderment at this bizarre instrument, smiles broadly and beckons him to continue.
Two hours bumping and skidding through deep Saharan sand in a jeep from Timbuktu, the festival is certainly a challenge to get to. Nonetheless, it's been a huge hit since the first festival in 2001, catapulting desert music and Touareg culture onto the world stage and attracting increasing numbers of festival-goers and artists from all over the world, including Robert Plant and Damon Albarn. In the late afternoon sun, dozens of thoroughbred camels ridden by Touareg men in colourful ceremonial gowns race between the dunes, with none other than Princess Caroline of Monaco gracing the stage to award the prizes. A steady beat of traditional Touareg tindé drums, evocative balafon (xylophone) melodies and the high-pitched tahalilete (yelling and ululating sound) women's chants drift through the scorched air, punctuated with the groaning of camels and revving of 'quatre-quatres' (4x4's) out of control in deep sand.
Touareg camel racers. Photo by Helen Gilchrist
Some people arrive by camel, some by Toyota Landcruiser. Some have travelled by boat for four days up the Niger river; some have journeyed days overland from Chad, Niger, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Mauritania; and some, like us, have arrived by plane from Bamako to Timbuktu, along with many of the musicians, who we watched prising their koras, guitars, ngoni lutes, calabash drums and djembes into the overhead lockers. A large crowd is gathered beneath the full moon and colourful lights of the main stage, with the orange dots of campfires peppering the dunes behind. The Touaregs say a full moon in the desert has the power to crack boulders in half and drive people mad. The place is certainly crackling with energy. Teenage boys weave through the crowd with trays selling tea and sachets of whisky, while groups of Touaregs and Westerners dance in circles, feet stomping to the entrancing polyrhythmic build up, searing electric blues riffs, call and response vocals and Doors-esque psychedelic sounds of a modern Touareg group called Imarhane. The spell is broken only by a huge cheer as Abdallah, one of the principle songwriters and guitarists from the now-legendary Tinariwen - the Touareg group who first created this revolutionary electric sound of a very different desert music - joins the band on stage for a couple of songs. Despite being billed as headliners at the festival, Tinariwen are not playing this year (but then neither are many others included on the line-up sent to members of the press, like the "one or two famous Western artists such as Carlos Santana, Bono U2, Phil Collins, Tracy Chapman or Ry Cooder"). The official line is that they're in the middle of recording their new album at home in Tessalit (600 miles or so from Timbuktu) and can't spare the time - but rumours spread of other reasons to do with the festival organisers. Regardless, it's a big disappointment for their many fans - both Touareg and tourists - who've made the long journey to see them play in the incredible setting of the festival that first propelled their unique sound onto the global stage.
THE ULTIMATE REBEL MUSIC
Tinariwen. Photo by Thomas Dorn
Ibrahim was one of many Touaregs who joined Ghadaffi's camps, along with the other founding members of the band - Hassan and Intayedan. Here they remained for several years, until it became bitterly apparent that Ghadaffi had just been using them as pawns in his wider political ambitions in North Africa and the Middle East, when he started negotiating the repatriation of Touaregs from Niger directly with the Nigerien government.
Tinariwen sang songs about the pain of exile, drifting, loss, longing for family and friends, and dreams self-determination - the feelings experienced by the generation of younger Touaregs called the ishumar (unemployed), some of whom also started playing with Tinariwen. Not long after they took part in the second Touareg rebellion of 1990, Tinariwen recorded their first cassette, Tenere (1992). It spread like wildfire, with homemade recordings passed between friends who identified with their message. True rebel music, it was banned by the authorities and anyone caught listening to it could be arrested. "It was a cassette-to-cassette ghetto-blaster grapevine," says Andy Morgan, Tinariwen's British manager. "The audio quality was as atrocious as the message was powerful. It was an electrified sound and thus appealed to a youth wrestling with modernity. It was rock'n'roll." After a series of negotiations prompted by the UN, a peace agreement was brokered in 1995, culminating in the famous 'La Flamme de la Paix' in Timbuktu in March 1996, when 3,000 weapons were burnt on a giant bonfire. The first Festival au Desert was staged in 2001 to further stimulate reconciliation and international awareness. Philippe Brix, manager of French band Lo'Jo, who's widely credited for making the first festival happen, described it as "like an open door for new times". The Malian prime minister and ambassadors from France, Germany, the USA and Canada attended the first festival, and UNESCO ran an arms-for-camels exchange scheme. Tinariwen, the rebel heroes, played a welcoming set on stage to greet them. "It suddenly felt as if the world was taking notice for the first time ever," recalls Abdallah. "We were all very happy and excited about that, and curious. It was so strange. We had no idea where it was all leading either." Where it was leading was that Tinariwen's incredible sound leapt to the attention of a few Western journalists who were at that first festival - including Andy Morgan, who later became their manager. Their first tour of Europe was later that year, along with their first internationally released album, The Radio Tisdas Sessions. The true story of Tinariwen riding into battle with Stratocaster guitars strapped to their backs and Kalashnikovs in their hands seized the world's imagination and redefined the idea of rebel music. Forget The Sex Pistols; rebel music doesn't get any more genuine than this. Their story - combined with their music's hypnotic blend of exotic and familiar sounding blues and rock riffs - has made them hugely successful in Europe and America; selling over 150,000 copies of their three albums Aman Iman (2007), Amassakoul (2004) and The Radio Tisdas Sessions (2001). After two days trying to track Abdallah down at the 2009 festival, we finally find him filming the camel races on his digi camcorder, surrounded by dozens of friends. There's a party atmosphere and everyone wants his attention, so we have to muscle our way through the crowd to speak to him. "Music is still the main theme, but without the festival it would have been impossible to draw the world's attention to the Touareg cause," he says. "Music is the easiest way to spread the message." Unfortunately it's not all peace, love and understanding, however. At the time of going to press, four Europeans had just been kidnapped by Touareg rebels after attending the Festival of Anderamboukane in eastern Mali. In December 2008, Touareg rebels attacked a military base southwest of Timbuktu, and in January 2009 the Malian government claimed to have killed 31 Touareg guerrillas in Kidal. This year, European and North American governments specifically advised people not to go to the festival - which organisers claim has slashed attendance by 60%. While we're there, we hear talk of Malian soldiers patrolling the desert around the festival site, with US reconnaissance watching from afar, and we're warned not to venture out beyond the festival perimeter. "This whole area is a hotspot," says one journalist from Barcelona.
TRACKS IN THE SAND 
Vieux Farka Touré. Photo by Helen Gilchrist
In a dusty hollow beneath several thorn trees, his son, Vieux Farka Touré, is camping incognito with his friends in small, modern tents. Our guide, Dicko, is an old friend of his, so he's happy to chat with us - but, like his father, it's clear he finds the fuss around celebrity tedious. "I've got my tent, I've got my friends, we play music - it's very simple. I'm relaxed - I don't need VIP treatment. Nothing's worth losing simplicity. Why build a huge house? You'll only occupy one room at a time." Ali taught him how to play, although he also tried to stop Vieux from pursuing a career in music as he'd had bad experiences with his first record company ripping him off early in his career, and wanted to protect his son. "My father taught me how to play, so I'm always keeping one foot in tradition - which you can't really put aside - and the other foot in other musical progression," he says. "At first, people thought I'd just try to repeat what my father had done. They said, 'ah, but you're not going to be like your father' - but I don't need to be like my father. I don't need to imitate anyone. The majority of Malian artists are imitating other artists, or taking inspiration from them. I just do whatever I think." He's brought his friends the French rapper, Flem Art, and reggae artist, Mic Mo, with him to the festival, and their performance together that night is one of the highlights, pushing new directions and showing that desert music is a constantly evolving sound. The festival's positive energy is almost tangible, as musicians from all cultures jam together. "Opportunities like we have here to come and communicate are important," says musician and choreographer Awa Sangho. "It's not always a question of money or materials - but being able to play for the pleasure of everyone!African culture without boundaries." The 2009 festival's closing act, simply named Desert Blues, reflects this longing for unity. A collaboration between West Malian megastar, Habib Koité; Ali Farka Touré disciple, Afel Boucoum; and Touareg outfit, Tartit, Desert Blues mixes many influences. "Each comes from a different part of Mali, and the idea is to unify them, and make Malian music," explains well-known producer Barou Diallo, who's also playing in the Desert Blues ensemble. "Cultural diversity is an essential key for peace. That's the principle message of our work - and we'd like to spread it as widely as possible." As the great man Ali Farka Touré once said, "You can change society through music." (Helen Gilchrist)
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"The electric guitar was an instrument that made them dream of freedom, of travelling the world, and of being connected to other people in different continents who thought like them," explains Abdallah, who joined Tinariwen in Libya in 1985. "But it was also a way of facing up to their own problems, and of expressing their feelings about themselves and their situation in a style that was appropriate. In some ways, it was also a cry for freedom. In the old days, many of the traditional instruments like the tindé and the imzad fiddle could only be played by women, while the teherdent lute was something that the griots played in Gao and Timbuktu. The electric guitar was something entirely new, free of any baggage or tradition. Anybody could pick up the guitar, write a song, and express themselves. That was very new and very liberating."
