Tinariwen at the Showbox

The tale of Tinariwen begins with the story of its founding father, Ibrahim Ag Alhabib. The son of a Tuareg rebel, at the age of four Ibrahim witnessed his father’s execution at the hands of the government during the 1963 uprising in Mali.

Growing up in between the deserts and refugee camps of Algeria, Ibrahim was regarded as a wanderer and a loner – he was nicknamed ‘Abaraybone’, meaning ‘ragamuffin child’. One day, he remembers, he was watching a western at a makeshift desert cinema and was struck by a scene in which a cowboy plays a song on a guitar. Inspired, he built his first guitar using an oil can, a stick and a bicycle brake wire. He started to learn to play, practising old Tuareg melodies, modern Arabic pop tunes and the Malian blues music of Ali Farka Touré.