Tuareg Rock Rising: The New Generation of Desert Blues

Meet the bands carrying the Tuareg guitar movement into a new decade.

Tuareg desert blues is the purest rock story happening right now: guitars built from scrap, rhythms tuned to the camel's pace, and a whole generation of players turning exile and revolution into riffs. The new class of bands is the strongest yet.

We profiled five of them, from the Niger veterans to the Mali newcomers who are selling out European tours without a label. The tone — a Strat dimed through a tiny amp in the desert — is unlike anything else on earth.