Toumast move on

Second album, Amachal

Paris 

20/01/2011 - 

Something has happened with Amachal, the second album by the duo Moussa Ag Keyna and Aminatou Goumar, who make up Toumast. Musically open-minded, the sound moves away from Ishumar music, the theme tune of the Tuareg rebellion, yet retains the same poetic, militant edge.

RFI Musique: This second album is musically very open-minded, with a Jimi Hendrix cover, an appearance by the rapper Beat Assaillant and the mellifluous tones of Jehro. Why?
Moussa Ag Keyna: I don’t go round on a camel anymore! I’ve been in France since 1994. It came about from the people I met: Paris is a small world when you work in the same business. But that doesn’t mean I’m any less of a Tuareg musician. When I arrived here, all I knew was Ishumar cassettes (Ed’s note: Tuareg resistance music). A friend gave me a Jimi Hendrix album, then one by BB King, and afterwards I discovered a bunch of guitarists: Jimmy Page, Santana, Ben Harper’s first albums and still Hendrix, which I listen to a lot.

Your tracks are very rock, were you all worked up when you composed this album?
Yes, my music is inspired by the Tuareg people’s situation, and I composed the album in 2008, when the fighting started up again in the desert. I wasn’t in a good way. My cousins and friends fight: they’ve got satellite phones and they used to call me up to tell me what was going on. In the track Aïr-Tombouctou, I talk directly about the situation when I say, “Our blood is flowing and no one is crying”… It’s hard.

On that particular track, you can hear an accordion and a flute, and then a bombard or maybe bagpipes in the background.
For me, the bombard isn’t Breton it’s Tuareg! We call it the taranipt. During the rainy season, a certain plant grows that we cut down and blow into, and the sound is just like the bombard. It’s a way to make the animals go quietly into the fields. I rediscovered a part of my childhood in Brittany. It’s important for me to show that instruments from traditional cultures resemble each other and that at the end of the day we’re all pretty similar.

Whatever the musical tone of your tracks, your lyrics always have a link with life in the camps and the Tuareg people. Do you still make Ishumar music?
Of course I do! Amachal, the album’s title, means “message”. A lot of young Tuareg musicians now compose with a bass guitar and drums or meet with western artists. Ten years after Tinariwen, Toumast came along and now a new, more globalised generation is emerging. But the music is primarily addressed to Tuaregs and our mothers, who didn’t understand what we were doing. Back home, the men dance and sing, but they don’t play instruments. We picked up the guitar to make ourselves heard, and the aim is still the same: I sing about nostalgia, exile, nomadic existence and my desire for change. We need to remain united.

You live in France, the album was released there, and you tour in Europe a lot. Is your message aimed at a western audience?
Like for the first album, I insist on the fact that the Tuaregs have a lot of problems. We’re not a cliché in blue on our camels. Our situation doesn’t mean that we can live quietly – we have been struggling for centuries against invasions and influences to preserve our territory and lifestyle. My great grandfather died fighting, and so did my grandfather. Only my father escaped that destiny. I myself was caught between life and death when I arrived in France, with gunshot wounds. I really hope we won’t become like the North American Indians. Each war and massacre diminishes our people. There are around a million of us today, but a lot of Tuaregs are fleeing drought and will move into the shanty towns that crowd round the capitals.

Apart from your musical combat, what is your relationship with Niger today?
I’m still directly in contact with the camp. In a couple of hours I’m getting on a plane to Madrid to check that the second-hand solar water pump that our cooperative bought works properly. Looking for water is becoming more and more of an issue, so this pump could change life in the camp. It took a bunch of emigrants and ex-fighters seven years to save up for this model, which can drill down to 700 metres. If all goes well, the machine will get onto a cargo ship to Lomé port in Togo, then on a jeep to our place. We’re having engineers come from Niamey to find out where to drill, and how, etc. It’s a 100% Tuareg initiative, and we’re proud of it. It will help limit emigration and give people a chance to live better. All we can hope for now is that all will go as planned!

Toumast Amachal (Green United Music / Pias) 2011

Playing live in the Alhambra, Paris on 3 February 2011

Eglantine  Chabasseur

Translation : Anne-Marie  Harper