Mdou Moctar

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Mdou Moctar (2014)

Mdou Moctar (* 1985 in Abalak ; actually Mahamadou Souleymane ) is a Nigerien guitarist and singer-songwriter . He is an important representative of the Tuareg blues , which combines elements of the blues and rock with the traditional African music of the Tuareg .

Career

Mdou Moctar comes from a conservative Muslim Tuareg family. As a child he enjoyed listening to the music of guitarists Abdallah ag Oumbadougou and Ali Farka Touré . He built his own guitar and, as a left-handed player , played songs from other musicians. At the age of 18, Moctar, like many Nigerien Tuareg, went to Libya to earn money as a migrant worker for his family. For three years he took on various jobs, including in connection with the search for water in the Sahara and as a soldier in the army of Muammar al-Gaddafi . The poor working conditions brought him back to Niger in 2005. After attending a concert by jazz guitarist Paolo Radoni , he decided to devote himself seriously to guitar music. He began playing as a professional musician at weddings and other celebrations.

His first album Anar , which was released in 2008, Mdou Moctar recorded in Nigeria . There he used the typical guitar sound of the Tuareg blues , for which the band Tinariwen from Mali had become known, and combined this with distinctive beats and auto-tune during the vocal recordings. His lyrics were about love and revolution. He took the auto-tune, which is unusual in the Tuareg blues, from the house music popular with young people in Nigeria . With this he had nationwide success in Niger and went on extensive concert tours. The usual exchange among young people in Niger way music with each other was to them on memory cards of mobile phones to store and pass on this. The memory cards sometimes covered great distances. The American Christopher Kirkley from the Sahel Records label discovered a memory card with music from the Anar album in Mauritania . He managed to get in touch with Mdou Moctar via many detours. Kirkley became Moctar's agent. His song Tahoultine was on the compilation 2011 Music from Saharan Cellphones of Sahel Sounds recorded and released as a single. In 2013 Sahel Sounds produced Moctar's second album Afelan , which works without electronic effects. Moctar can be heard on acoustic and electric guitar. The album was recorded in Tchintabaraden . In 2014 and 2015 Moctar undertook European tours that took him to Berlin , among other places .

In 2015 the film Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai was released , which Moctar (as leading actor and composer) and Kirkley (as director and screenwriter) shot in Agadez . The work is an adaptation of the 1984 film Purple Rain with Prince in the lead role. The film title from the Tuareg language literally means “rain color blue with some red in it”. In the Tuareg language there is no word for the color violet ("purple"). The production, financed through a crowdfunding campaign, had a budget of just under 18,000 US dollars . Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai is the first feature film to be shot on Tuareg.

Private

Mdou Moctar has lived in Agadez since 2013.

Discography

Albums

  • 2008: Anar
  • 2013: Afelan
  • 2015: Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai (Original Soundtrack Recording)
  • 2019: Ilana (The Creator)

Singles

  • 2011: Tahoultine

Web links

Commons : Mdou Moctar  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Thomas Vorreyer: Prince from the desert. In: Jungle World . January 29, 2015, accessed October 3, 2015 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e João Bonifácio: O estrelato num cartão SIM. In: Público . May 29, 2015. Retrieved October 3, 2015 (Portuguese).
  3. ^ Tuareg musician Mdou Moctar plays on the stages of Europe. (No longer available online.) In: Zeit Online . August 6, 2014, archived from the original on March 10, 2016 ; Retrieved October 3, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zeit.de
  4. ↑ Nick Murray: 'Purple Rain' Falls on the Sahara in Brilliant African Adaptation. In: Rolling Stone . May 8, 2015, accessed October 3, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Alan shear Chair: Guitar Great Mdou Moctar Stars in Niger's Own Purple Rain. In: The Village Voice . May 6, 2015, accessed October 3, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Moctar, Mdou
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Souleymane, Mahamadou (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Nigerien guitarist and singer-songwriter
DATE OF BIRTH 1985
PLACE OF BIRTH Abalak