Some guitarists start with a shop-bought instrument. Mdou Moctar started with a homemade one strung with bicycle cables. Today he plays packed rock venues around the world, and his fiery solos have earned comparisons with rock’s greatest players.
Abalak
Mdou Moctar was born Mahamadou Souleymane in 1984 in Abalak, Niger. He grew up in a Tuareg community where guitar music had become an important part of modern culture.
Inspiration
After hearing artists such as Abdallah Oumbadougou, a pioneer of Tuareg guitar, he wanted to play. His family disapproved of electric music for religious reasons, so he built his own guitar, using bicycle cables for strings.
Cellphone hits
His first album, Anar, recorded in 2008, featured autotuned vocals and was never officially released. Yet it became popular across the Sahel through mobile phone music trading, as people shared songs from phone to phone.
Sahel Sounds
Some of those songs reached a global audience when the label Sahel Sounds included them on the compilation Music from Saharan Cellphones: Volume 1. The label went on to release several of his albums.
Afelan
His album Afelan was recorded live in Tchintabaraden and was described as full of rusty-edged jams and sun-weathered ballads.
On film
He starred in the 2015 film Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai, whose title means Rain the Color of Blue with a Little Red in It, a Tuareg retelling inspired by Prince’s Purple Rain.
A full band
His fourth album, Ilana: The Creator, released in 2019, was the first to feature a full band, adding bass and drums to his guitar-led sound.
Styles
He plays guitar in the takamba and assouf styles of Tuareg music, but his performances carry the energy of rock, with long, blazing solos.
International stages
Mdou Moctar and his band have toured widely in Europe and North America, where rock critics have embraced his music as some of the most exciting guitar playing of recent years.
Left-handed style
Mdou Moctar plays left-handed, and his fast, looping lines and heavy use of distortion on stage give Tuareg melodies a new intensity that has drawn in rock fans with no background in African music.
From the Sahel to the world
His career began with songs traded between phones in the desert. It is a very modern story of how music travels today, from a homemade guitar in Niger to festival stages thousands of miles away.
