Amatssou
WEDGE
8/10
WE’VE come to expect protest music to be straightforward, a case of goodies against baddies. In geopolitical terms, protest music means the colonialised against the colonialists, the Global South against the Global North. But the long history of the Tuareg rock band Tinariwen is an object lesson in how messy and complicated rebellion can be. “Crazy things are happening/Incomprehension and confusion/Truth mixed with lies”, croons Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni on their latest album, over a wonderfully complicated 6/8 beat on “Iket Adjen” (Too Many Things).
Tinariwen see themselves