Tinariwen are nomadic Tuareg guitar-poets from Mali’s southern Sahara. Their music carries the message of freedom and resistance among their people, and formed the soundtrack to the 1990 Tuareg rebellions in Mali and Niger. Their sound is traditional tribal melodies transposed to electric guitar, mixed with blues, rock, pop, Berber and Arabic influences – a modern desert rock.
Tinariwen have won countless awards for Best CD of the Year in polls around the world and a prestigious BBC Award for World Music. They also co-founded the seminal Festival in the Desert in 2001 in Timbuktu, now hosted by Western stars like Robert Plant.
Javier Garcia creates "a musical narrative for Miami as sweet as kissing your honey on the beach to a swaying reggae beat, as danceable as a 3 a.m. Cuban jam session." Born in Spain to a Cuban father and an Irish mother, Javier started playing the guitar at 12 years old. The Franciscan headmaster at his high school in Ireland told him that although he loved hearing his music in the school halls, he would be better suited in another school. So he moved with his father in Miami and fully delved into Cuban Miami music and life.
His first CD achieved gold sales and set up young Javier as a Latin pop star. But he delved more into music roots, and began to work with top collaborators on a follow-up, finding greater musical freedom and maturity: multi-Grammy award winning producer Gustavo Santaolalla, drummer Abe Laboriel Jr (from Paul McCartney’s band), living batá treasure Francisco Aguabella and others. His sound is a diverse fusion of Cuban music with rock, hip-hop, ska, funk, reggae, anchored by his talents as a composer, arrange, guitar and percussion player and gifted singer.
DJ Marcelino Da Lua is one third of the ground-breaking Rio de Janeiro-based team Bossacucanova. Second-generation bossa novans, they have taken the iconic music of their fathers and made it new yet again with the addition of breakbeats and electronica. As a DJ, Da Lua lets loose with a mix of Brazilan, hiphop, reggae and electic sounds.
Of Iraqi and Cuban decent, NYC-based GlobeSonic dj Fabian Alsultany is a gap-bridger, producer, entrepeneur and futurist. GlobeSonic Sound System is a traveling DJ collective that fuses traditional music from the Middle East, India, Latin America, and Africa with modern electronica.
Heineken TransAtlantic Festival, Miami (Rhythm Foundation) Schedule
04/02/2009, Thu
Miami, FL
Zizek Urban Beats, Argentina
News Lounge
Show: 7:30 pm
# Launch party. Free and open to the public.
04/07/2009, Tue
Miami, FL
Globesonic DJ Fabian Alsutany, New York City
News Lounge
Show: 7:30 pm
# Free and open to the public.
04/17/2009, Fri
Miami Beach, FL
Aterciopelados, Colombia, and Curmin, Brazil
North Beach Bandshell
Tix: $20 / $25 at door, Show: 7 pm
04/18/2009, Sat
Miami Beach, FL
Ximena Sarinana, Mexico
North Beach Bandshell
Tix: $20 / $25 door, Show: 7 pm
# Florida debut. Rachel Goodrich of Miami opens.
04/24/2009, Fri
Miami Beach, FL
Budos Band, New York City
North Beach Bandshell
Tix: $20 / $25 door, Show: 7 pm
# Javier Garica of Miami opens. Free after-show party with DJ Da Lua, Brazil.
04/25/2009, Sat
Miami Beach, FL
Cucu Diamantes, New York City, and Tinariwen, Mali
North Beach Bandshell
Tix: $20 / $25 door, Show: 7 pm
# Free after-show party with DJ Da Lua, Brazil.
Tinariwen CDs and DVDs available:
- In North America: Aman Iman: Water is Life (CD), Radio Tisdas Sessions (CD), Amassakoul (CD), Live in London (DVD)
- In Europe: Aman Iman: Water Is Life (CD), Amassakoul (CD), Aman Iman: Water Is Life (Vinyl)
Author: World Music Central News Room
World music news from the editors at World Music Central
