BOMBINO

Bombino, the Niger-based musician, channels the Sahara’s sweeping scale through intricate guitar lines and spellbinding vocals in a manner both contemplative and rooted in the earth. Early endorsement from the Rolling Stones, secured prior to any album release, prompted him to honor his Tuareg nomadic lineage by cutting a string of widely praised records throughout the 2010s in locations spanning Nashville, Niger, New York, and Morocco. He wove traces of psychedelia and American idioms into his hypnotic desert blues, bolstering his profile with Nomad and Deran, the latter earning a 2019 Grammy nomination. After issuing a live set in 2020, he resumed studio work on the ardent, politically charged Sahel, which appeared in 2023.

Born Goumar Almoctar in 1980 inside the nomadic Tuareg encampment Tidene, Bombino grew up amid intense political instability; his family fled to Algeria by 1990 and returned seven years later to Agadez, northern Niger’s largest city, where he began pursuing music as a profession. After extended periods performing with regional ensembles, wider notice followed when he traveled to California in 2006 with Tidawt and cut a desert-blues version of the Rolling Stones classic “Hey Negrita” alongside Keith Richards and Charlie Watts. The next year filmmaker Hisham Mayet recorded Bombino and his electric band for Music from Niger: Guitars from Agadez, Vol. 2, issued by Sublime Frequencies in 2009. Renewed tensions in Niger drove Bombino to Burkina Faso in 2007, where filmmaker Ron Wyman found him in 2009 and proposed helping him complete a proper studio album.

He returned safely to his homeland a year later, staging a celebratory concert at the Grand Mosque before finishing Agadez with Wyman’s assistance. The 2011 release spotlighted Bombino’s arresting vocals and trance-like guitar work and ranked among NPR’s notable discoveries of that year. For his second album, Nomad, Bombino journeyed to Nashville in 2013 to work with the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach; the resulting collection merged Tuareg rhythms with Delta blues, trance, and psychedelic touches while reflecting the producer’s imprint as strongly as the artist’s own. Azel, recorded in upstate New York with his quintet and produced by David Longstreth of Dirty Projectors, adhered more closely to his hallmark sound; released on Partisan in April 2016, it placed his skills as composer, player, and singer at the forefront. Deran, arriving two years later, extended his growing renown and brought a Grammy Award nomination for Best World Music Album, marking the first such recognition for any artist from his country. Long celebrated for his fiery concerts, Bombino delivered his debut live album, Live in Amsterdam, in 2020. While preparing the successor to Deran he collaborated in Casablanca with Welsh producer David Wrench, shaping a wide-ranging set that addressed hardships confronting the Tuareg and threats to their heritage; Partisan released Sahel in 2023.