Guitar virtuoso Mdou Moctar gets political after home country experiences coup

Guitarist Mdou Moctar has been bringing a new kind of music to the world steeped in his cultural heritage. His latest album strikes a decidedly political chord in response to upheaval and a military coup in his home country of Niger. Special correspondent Christopher Booker caught up with Moctar on his tour through the U.S. for our arts and culture series, CANVAS.

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Amna Nawaz: Guitarist Mdou Moctar has been bringing a new kind of music to the world steeped in his cultural heritage.

Now his latest album strikes a decidedly political chord, a response to upheaval in his home country of Niger, including a military coup last year.

Special correspondent Christopher Booker caught up with him on tour through the U.S. for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

Christopher Booker: The reviews of Mdou Moctar’s new album are filled with incendiary adjectives, words like fiery, blazing, and screaming, all appropriate descriptions of an album which, to Western ears, offers an entirely new demonstration of what’s possible with an electric guitar.

When I first sat down with Moctar three years ago, there was an effort under way among the press to find a proper description of this guitar prodigy from Niger. Was he the Hendrix of the Sahara or an African an African Eddie Van Halen?

Mdou Moctar, Musician: For me, it doesn’t matter. They call me whatever they need. But I am still Mdou Moctar. And then I try all to be me.

I support, absolutely, I support Jimi Hendrix. I love what he do. And then I love Eddie Van Halen too., all the famous artists, very talented. I love them, but I love myself more. And then I try all the time to, like, have my own style.

Christopher Booker: Sung in his native Tamashek and French, Moctar’s music is a contemporary iteration of what’s been nicknamed desert blues, guitar-driven music performed by the Tuareg people, a traditionally nomadic group from the Sahara.

Do you worry that there’s a rush to label you, to almost Westernize your sound?

Mdou Moctar: No. The music, like, it’s — I feel the music, it’s like ocean.

Christopher Booker: Three years later, after a near constant tour through the U.S. and Europe, Moctar now stands as a singular player. Comparisons are no longer necessary.

Mdou Moctar: The most important for me to saw those people happy. That, it’s the most important, because we do the same when we have 30 person. We use the same energy with like 30,000 person.

Christopher Booker: Despite growing recognition, Moctar’s musical ocean has grown more agitated, reflected both in the intensity of his playing and in the title of this new album surrounded by the incendiary descriptions, “Funeral for Justice.”

When you say funeral for justice, what justice is being lost or buried?

Mdou Moctar: For me, when I say the funeral for justice, I mean, like, justice doesn’t exist anymore. Every country, like, try to be strong than his neighbor. Just for what reason? Just to hurt him. To make him say, I am stronger than you, I can say whatever I need to say. No one can stop me.

It is what happen in this world, and that is not justice. That is not fair.

Christopher Booker: This album, though, was written and recorded before the recent upheaval in Moctar’s native Niger. On July 26, the Northern African country saw its democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, a politician Moctar publicly supported, overthrown in a military coup.

This happened as Moctar was on tour.

Mikey Coulton, Musician: It was like, OK, we’re going to take this day by day, hour by hour. And, finally, when we finished the last shows, like, yes, you guys can’t go back home. The borders are closed.

Christopher Booker: Mikey Coulton plays bass in the band. He started playing with Moctar in 2017.

Mikey Coulton: And so everyone was stuck in New York for a while and freaking out, calling their families. Like, they just want to go home to their families. And it was a very scary thing for these guys.

Christopher Booker: Moctar and drummer Souleymane Ibrahim and rhythm guitar player Ahmoudou Madassane spent nearly six weeks in a holding pattern in the United States. But in October, they were able to return home, staying home through the winter and early spring, before the summer’s tours of the U.S. and Europe resumed.

Were worried they wouldn’t be able to get back here?

Mikey Coulton: Yes, of course, always. There’s always that fear. Even pre-coup, there’s always the visa fear. There’s, yes, we get the visa, but then what happens? Can they get inside of the country? And there’s never that sign of relief until you see them walking through the airport gates.

Christopher Booker: They did make it through this time, and the first stop was a single-day rehearsal in Brooklyn, a warmup before two shows at Coachella, California’s annual mega-festival in desert outside of Palm Springs.

You sing about many things about what’s going on at home. Do American audiences know what’s happening back home?

Mdou Moctar: Some of them, they know today what is going. Here in the unites states, the people love the music, like, very loud and crazy.

(Laughter)

Mdou Moctar: And then I am trying again to make them happy by what I am playing. Later, some of them, like, are curious and then they’re going to say, I have to know what he’s thinking about it.

And then, in the same time, we have the translator for our track in the album, and then they’re going to see it and ten understand what we’re talking about it.

Christopher Booker: On the opening track of “Funeral for Justice,” also called “Funeral for Justice,” Moctar asks African leaders: “Why does your ear only heed France and America? They misled you into giving up your lands. They delightfully watch you in your fraternal feud.”

Mdou Moctar: This album, it’s, like, more serious than all the albums I did before, because the problem is going, like, bigger than bigger. We have, like, to be honest and, like, punch in the face for the colonialism and tell them the truth.

Christopher Booker: What would justice look like for you?

Mdou Moctar: The first thing is, don’t hurt someone because you’re stronger than him. Don’t drink his water because you are thirsty. It is what I call justice.

Christopher Booker: While, personally and artistically, Moctar wrestles with the complicated geopolitics of the world, the spirit of the effort is, at its core, still pure rock ‘n’ roll.

You’re a touring rock star at this point. You’re playing all over the world. You’re playing Coachella. People see you. Your life is on the road, and then it’s home. Do you feel like you live in two worlds?

Mdou Moctar: It’s not I feel. I do.

Christopher Booker: This certainly may be true for Moctar the man, but, with his guitar in hand, the contours between these two worlds are becoming just a bit more difficult to see.

For the “PBS News Hour,” I’m Christopher Booker in Brooklyn, New York.