1970s – 2020sPeak: 2010s
Desert Blues
About Desert Blues
Northern Mali's guitar-based tradition descending from Songhai and Tuareg music, often heard as the African ancestor of Mississippi blues. Ali Farka Touré pulled the Songhai lineage into modern albums from the 1970s onward, and Tinariwen's electric Tuareg ensemble reshaped it from 1982. The 2012 jihadist takeover of Timbuktu and the music ban scattered the scene; Songhoy Blues and Tamikrest carry it forward in exile.