On Feb. 10, Mdou Moctar performed at the Arden Club in Wilmington, Del. Moctar, the stage name of Tuareg guitarist Mahamadou Souleymane, was accompanied by rhythm guitarist Ahmoudou Madassane, drummer Souleymane Ibrahim and bassist Mikey Coltun.
Walking into the Arden Club, one cannot deny the atmosphere of Americana. The venue is no larger than the houses it neighbors and no different in style or fashioning, save the ticket booth attached to an outside wall. Inside, it is a country cabin with exposed beams, fairy lights and a stone fireplace. The comforting must of the air pairs well with the painted portraits of gentleman and bards scattered over the wood-paneled walls.
Moctar and the band did not fit in with their surroundings. The group donned the small stage in shimmering jewel-toned kaftans and pristine white litham, traditional turbans worn by the nomadic Tuareg people of north and west Africa. As the band began their set, a tentative attunement to the space and to one another eventually grew into a confident rhythm and then a polyrhythm.
Moctar sat front and center, occasionally throwing one leg across the other in a gesture of nonchalance while his fingers fluttered over the neck of the guitar. His voice, along with those of Madassane and Ibrahim rose and faded, allowing for moments of pure instrumentation — which ranged from crunchy and moaning to mellow, sonorous and harmonic. Coltun’s baseline and Ibrahim’s drumkit — comprised of bass drum, African drum and cymbal — rounded out a sound that was thoroughly hypnotic but never stagnant.
Moctar’s guitar itself was practically a fifth member, which sound engineer Mitch Midkiff explained in an interview with The News Letter, is a Fender American Acoustasonic Telecaster. Moctar’s particular model, which is decommissioned, is a hybrid between an acoustic and an electric — in his words “acoustic-ish.” Its battery charges with a USB port, which Midkiff highlights is “super dumb and inconvenient for everyone involved.” But Moctar plays it like a dream, capturing the wiry structures and galvanizing effects of an electric guitar along with the lusciously simple folk sound of an acoustic.
If there is one thing absent from the thrust of Moctar’s music, it is convenience. His career as a guitarist began in his home country of Niger. His music, primarily electric but inspired by traditional Tuareg acoustic sound, was mostly spread through person-to-person mobile phone networks. Moctar made his first guitar himself, in the vein of his Sahrawi and desert blues predecessors like Ibrahim Ag Alhabib. When he was first scouted by Sahel Sounds of Portland, Ore., he thought that the American interest in his music was a joke being played on him by his friends. In 2024, Moctar released his seventh album, Funeral for Justice.
The album that the group is now touring is part of a project adapted from Funeral for Justice. It is an acoustic re-recording of the songs on Funeral for Justice under the name Tears of Injustice. The project came about when, in 2023, Mohamed Bazoum, president of Niger, was deposed, and the three Nigerien members of the group were unable to return home from touring in the United States for several weeks. Both versions of the album pull no punches; they address the suffering of Nigeriens and the Tuareg against colonial interference, government indifference, and the perversion of inequity and its casualties.
Surrounded by smoke and colorful lights, Moctar and his fellow musicians steadily beat out an elegy for justice. The sheltered atmosphere of summer camp and lake days was met with an iambic recognition of the weight of the suffering Moctar has witnessed, expressed in the form of his music.
The third song in the group’s lineup was the title track of Funeral for Justice. Translated from Tamasheq, the lyrics ask, “Dear African leaders, hear my burning question / Why does your ear only heed France and America?” and, “Why solely invest in your own kin’s learning? / While other children suffer on your watch?” Towards the end of the song, Moctar asserts that the nations to which his country’s leaders appeal “possess the power to help but chose not to.”
At a time when every other conversation I have among friends is a lament of the cruel irresponsibility of the current American political regime — particularly regarding the sudden withdrawal of aid from countries who have come to depend on it — Moctar’s music feels especially relevant. Regardless of one’s opinions on the matter, the fact that I cannot access the United States Agency for International Development’s website to verify what countries it served should be concerning.
The chasm of understanding regarding morality and stability between the people of a country and its leaders is relatable. Even in a nation that Moctar criticizes for its role in the problems which often inspire his music, the frustration of coming second to the lusts of power is tangible. The fact that Moctar’s words are in Tamasheq does not inhibit this resonance. The setting of these elegies to acoustic, more traditional soundscapes offers the opportunity to recognize that injustice permeates life. One cannot rage all the time, though injustice cannot be ignored.
After their final song, the band abruptly left the stage, and it seemed doubtful that the group would play an encore. Yet to the pleasure of the crowd, they reemerged. They began their last song in the same way, the moment before reaching full synchronicity producing an unexpected and thrilling dissonance out of the attuning of each musician to one another.
This time, however, it was not a song laced with traditional sound which found its way through, but a song to which we all know the words. It was drummer Souleymane Ibrahim’s birthday, and the audience sang “Happy Birthday” all together. Life persists. Music persists in the name of life. If you believe these things, listen to the outstanding and outrageous music of Moctar, and consider seeing him live on one of the subsequent dates of his current U.S. tour.
The full album recording of Tears of Injustice will be released Feb. 28, 2025.
