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 Nothing is more evocative
of the fascinating expanses of the Sahara desert than the music
of Tartit, a Tuareg band consisting of five women and four men
residing in the Timbuktu region.
Tartit play hypnotic, trance-inducing music: the women sit down,
sing, and play cyclic rhythms on their tinde drums, while the
men sing and play string instruments, acoustic and electric.
The tinde, played exclusively by women, is made from a small
wooden mortar that the women use to grind grains, and which
is covered with a goatskin. The men are veiled, the women aren't.
Tuareg society is one of the few throughout Africa in which
women are allowed to choose (and divorce) their husbands.
The word Tartit means union; it symbolizes the link
that exists among these musicians. The band was formed in a
refugee camp, during the Tuareg uprising in the early '90s.
These men and women of the desert, in their colourful attire,
express themselves primarily through their music. They cultivate
their Tuareg traditions wherever they go, whether they are in
exile, refugee camps or on tour. For the Tuareg, music is neither
a profession, nor a sign of some exceptional trait. It is, quite
simply, the identity of a nomad people that seeks to live freedom,
without borders with the meaning of the bands name.
Tartit have toured Europe several times, most recently as part
of the Desert Blues shows. Their second album Abacabok
was recorded in Bamako and in the northern Mali desert by (Congotronics
producer) Vincent Kenis, on his mobile studio.
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