Omara Moctar - BombinoOmara Moctar – Bombino - is one of the great guitar players and performers in the Sahara and Sahel regions of Africa and he has a cult like following. He was born in 1980 into a family of nomadic Tuareg herders living in the region of Agadez, Niger at the edge of the Sahara. His childhood was spent learning the survival skills necessary to a nomadic lifestyle. In the Tuareg community education is at the center of all activities and the desert is the university. When Bombino was barely 12 years old, his family took refuge in Tamanrasset, Algeria, to escape the hostilities related to the outbreak of the first Tuareg rebellion. In that same year, he picked up his first guitar.

In 1993 his family returned to Niger, where Tuareg guitar was a new phenomenon but forbidden by the authorities. Despite this ban, Bombino’s uncle encouraged his new interest. Guided by an instinct of curiosity the young boy hung around a music school, hoping to benefit from the lessons others were receiving. It did not take long for him to become passionate about playing music. Bombino later travelled to Algeria and Libya where he met professional musicians and for the first time heard the music of Ali Farka Toure’, Jimi Hendrix and others. He began learning some blues and rock and started to integrate it with the traditional music he grew up with.

The return of peace to Niger saw the lifting of the music ban and the musicians of the Niger Tuareg music scene were finally able to play together in Agadez. He now understood that his life as “a musician and eternal learner” was his destiny. Bombino’s music career began by serving as a cook and troubadour, travelling with tour groups visiting the magnificent dunes of the Sahara Desert, near Agadez. In 1998, Hasso Akotey created the group, Tidawt, with whom Bombino played for three years. In 2003 Bombino released his first CD, “Agamgam”, recorded in a dry river bed in the Niger bush. In 2006 he travelled with Tidawt, to perform in California. While there he was invited to record the song “Hey, Negrita” with Keith Richards and Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones.

In 2006, he traveled with Angelina Jolie for a week while she toured the Agadez region. He played the music of the Tuareg and told her the stories of nomadic life in the Sahara.

Returning to the US in June 2009 he began recording a new CD. While there he packed the house and rocked the Boston music scene at the legendary Johnny D’s outside of Boston. He also played for a benefit for Rain for the Sahel and Sahara, an American non-profit organization developing agriculture, water and educational programs in Niger.

In January, 2010, the Sultan of Agadez granted Bombino permission to stage a concert outside the Grande Mosque of Agadez - the first time such an event was allowed (filmed by ZeroGravity Films). A thousand people showed up, and after three years of rebellions, drought and a devastating flood, Agadez found a reason to celebrate. His soaring guitar solos brought the entire crowd to their feet dancing.

For many centuries the Tuareg have connected West Africa and the Mediterranean with culture and goods running their camel caravans across the Sahara Desert. Today, they are struggling to adapt to a modern world in which their nomadic lifestyle is threatened. Bombino is the new generation of Tuareg.

This is an English translation from IN-ROCKS magazine, the Rolling Stone of France.

The Wadi Mysteries The singer-guitarist Tuareg Bombino is emerging from the sand with his Saharan folk that is dancing in the flames. Absolutely magical.June 30, 2010“I can assure you that patience is not good,” sings the Tuareg from Niger, Omar “Bombino” Moctar on Tazidert. To listen to his first official album − brought out this week in a download on a French label − we had to be patient, to prick up our ears, to become initiated to some secrets of the music of the desert. Agamgam is one of the best African discs of the year and without doubt the most magical. Bombino is not a young camel of the year, surfing on the waves of the revival of Tuareg music -from the first album of Tamikrest to the performance of Tinariwen for the opening ceremony of the World Cup, 2010 is a big year for the style. The 10 songs of Agamgam were recorded in 2004.

During the recent years, some songs began to leak out: on the Ishumar compilation, an album published by the label Sublime Frequencies (without permission from the musician who denies it furiously). We could heard a camel braying, a camp fire crackling, the wind blowing; then an acoustic guitar dancing in the flames, a melancholic voice and an hypnotic rhythmic pulsation, that seems to be born from the earth, aspirated by the sky and inspired by the elements. Shamanic creation, horizontal vertigo, ideal harmony. The folk-blues from the desert in natural décor, at the source, far from the production artifices, as we rarely hear on a disc (we should refer to Alan Lomax recordings to find this depth in the interpretation, this elusive truth).

Agamgam is not a disc like any other. First, Bombino doesn’t sound like other Tuareg musicians. He has his own style, his personal guitar playing, his recognizable voice. Then, because Agamgam is a photo album, a document, capturing a unique moment.

In 2004, a bivouac in the wadi of Agamgam in the Tenere desert. Spanish people are filming a documentary. Bombino is accompanying the group, not as a musician, but as an assistant cook. At night, the Tuaregs play guitar and sing around the fire. The film’s sound engineer is recording. We will never hear about the film, but Bombino’s legend is growing, spreading out.

Sedryk, the French producer of the album, and benefactor of the Tuareg culture via his label Reacktion and his site tamasheq.net (see above):“When I received the recording of Bombino, I fell in love right away. We met during some of his stays in France; he is a very gentle man, very calm, easy going. He is extremely popular among the Tuaregs from Niger, very much in demand for weddings and baptisms. He doesn’t think in terms of career or soliciting producers, he doesn’t try to find a manager; he simply follows the opportunities. It took me three years to release the disc, because I never knew where Bombino was. In USA, in Niamey, in Burkina... he is always on the move.”

After the initial bewitchment of Agamgam, we should encounter Bombino’s music during the next months: the American production company Zero Gravity is on the verge of releasing a documentary film and a new double album- and electric −Bombino doesn’t play only campfire folk music, he is also a fearsome desert rocker. All of which we cannot wait to discover, no offense to Bombino.

Stéphane Deschamps Album: Agamgam 2004 (Reaction/Believe) www.Bombinoafrica.com

The Tuareg in the Modern World:A New Generation

The Tuareg or "Blue Men of the Desert" have long been known as warriors, traders and travelers of the Sahara Desert - as a people of grace and nobility as well as fighters of fierce reputation. They are a nomadic people descended from the Berbers of North Africa and for centuries have fought against colonialism and the imposition of strict Islamic rule. They adopted camel nomadism, along with its distinctive form of social organization, from camel-herding Arabs about thirteen hundred years ago, when the camel was introduced to the Sahara from Arabia.

"Tuareg" is a term given to these people by the Arabs, as they initially resisted Islam. To the Arabs, the name Tuareg means "rebel". They have had their own language - Tamasheq - and their own beliefs in which the woman is respected and shares many rights with the men in their community. The women are not required to cover their heads and faces.

Since the 12th Century Tuareg camel caravans crossing the Sahara desert have converged in the desert cities of Timbuktu, Mali and Niger, trading not only salt, millet, dates, perfume and spices, but also arts, history and music. They would play music influenced by musicians from all over the Mahgreb, from Senegal to Morocco- they were the link between cultures. In the late nineteenth century, the Tuareg resisted the French colonial invasion of their Central Saharan homelands. The desert has been their home and pastureland. It means freedom from oppressive religion, colonialism, and modernity. But that’s all changing fast.

Today, Niger, a large country in West Africa, is the world’s Wal-Mart of uranium. Until recently, it was a text book kleptocracy, making the uranium trade for those in charge lucrative beyond imagination. The former dictator, self appointed President-for-life Mamadou Tandja, was deposed in February 2010. There has been talk of elections and reform, but the new government’s intentions are unclear.

Omara Moctar – AKA Bombino – was born around 1980 to a family of nomadic shepherds living on the edge of the Sahara in central Niger. Like every young Tuareg, he spent his childhood living in and studying the ways of the desert. The Tuareg are scrappy, sensible, and absolutely certain of who they are. Often depicted as “desert warriors” and rebels, the Tuareg are simply a free people who wish to remain free – to drive camels across the Sahara and herd goats in the Sahel. But globalization, climate change, and 21st century economic colonialism make it impossible.

Bombino was forced into exile the first time in 1992, at age 12 when he and his family went to Algeria, where he saw his first guitar.

For more information on Bombino, please contact:

Eric Herman, Modiba Productions: eric@modiba.net or 1.212.725.0125