OUT AND ABOUT

Tinariwen

We watched Tinariwen play a show at The Bell House in Gowanus last night.

It was out of this world.

Tinariwen is a band of musicians from the Taureg rebel community in the Saharan desert region of Mali. They've been playing music since the late 1970's, influenced by West African blues and Moroccan Pop Rai during their nomadic years as exiles in Algeria and by radical protest songs that sprung from rebel fighting in Mali.

Couldn't keep my eyes off of Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, an old, wild-haired sage sporting a royal blue silk robe who sang--barely moving his lips, barely changing his expression--underneath his mustache.

His hand was bullet-scarred and moved with expert grace.

Can't stop, won't stop thinking about it.