Following the release of 2011's Tassili album, Tinariwen were in the midst of a North American tour when they made their way into our studios for a live radio session. The language barrier made it difficult for us to conduct an interview with them, but they shared three songs with us live on the airwaves and we all understood the message. Tinariwen is a band of Tuareg musicians from the Sahara Desert region of northern Mali. They formed in 1979 and began to gain a following outside the Sahara region in 2001, with the release of The Radio Tisdas Sessions, and the performances at Festival au Désert in Mali. (From June 5, 2012)

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Tinariwen Performance Archive: