Mdou Moctar, Tani Diakite & the Afrofunkstars

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Mdou Moctar and band.

Mdou Moctar

Even on the quieter numbers on the 2021 album Afrique Victime, the fiery expressiveness of Mdou Moctar’s guitar is likely to perk up the ears of rock fans. And when the guitarist and his bandmates let fly full blast, they whip up some of the trippiest psych to be heard in the 2020s. With lyrics sung in Tamasheq, the music of Mdou Moctar respects traditional Tuareg guitar music while combining it with the intensity of western hard rock and punk. With Tani Diakite & the Afrofunkstars.

$25 ($20 adv.).

media release: Mdou Moctar’s Afrique Victime was one of 2021’s most lauded releases: an innovative alchemy of Tuareg folk, blues and rock, electric guitar pyrotechnics, field recordings and electronics with poetic call-to-arms lyrics about the plight of his homeland of Niger. It won widespread praise, receiving a “Best New Music'' nod from Pitchfork and sweeping the “Best of 2021” lists, attaining high placements from The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, NPR, Rolling Stone, Variety, Esquire and many others. In only the span of a year, Afrique Victime has become wildly prolific, most recently with the track “Ya Habibti'' featuring in the title sequence of the Olivier Assayas-directed and HBO/A24-produced hit miniseries Irma Vep.

With Afrique Victime, the oft-hailed “Jimi Hendrix of the Sahara” ripped a new hole in the sky ­– boldly reforging contemporary Saharan music and “rock music” by melding guitar pyrotechnics, full-blast noise, and field recordings with poetic meditations on love, religion, women's rights, inequality, and Western Africa’s exploitation at the hands of colonial powers. It is the result of the combined efforts of Mdou, Ahmoudou Madassane, Souleymane Ibrahim and Mikey Coltun. 

Afrique Victime is Mdou’s most impressive work to date and an incredible leap forward. If Ilana was a late ’60s early ’70s ZZ Top and Black Sabbath record – Afrique Victime is mid-’70s to early ’80s Van Halen meets Black Flag meets Black Uhuru. The ferocity of Moctar’s electric guitar and the band's hypnotic rhythm section are on awe-inspiring display on songs like “Chismiten” and “Afrique Victime,” while softer acoustic ballads like “Habibti” and “Layla” highlight the more mournful yet incandescent facets of the band.

You can catch a glimpse of the band’s famously electric live set via this live streamed concert, Mdou Moctar – Live in Niamey, Niger - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFZobgLF5Vc

Mdou Moctar’s Souleymane Ibrahim also teamed up with black midi’s Morgan Simpson for the first time in Chicago at Electrical Audio. Check out the two drummers playing songs together from their respective latest albums: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL_8i0UvbiQ&t=277s

You can check out their KEXP session here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52CZVfiiMpY