Tinariwen Preps New Album ‘Hoggar’ & Shares ‘Sagherat Assani’ Single Featuring Sulafa Elyas

Tinariwen will issue a new album, Hoggar, on March 13 via the band’s Wedge label. The Sahara-based Tuareg musicians also released the single, “Sagherat Assani,” featuring Sudanese vocalist Sulafa Elyas.

With 45 years as a band under their belt, Tinariwen’s new album sees the band honoring the past while also looking to the future. Current members and and co-founders Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni and Touhami Ag Alhassane reconvened with fellow founder Liya “Diarra” Ag Ablil for the first time in 25 years on Hoggar. The album also sees a guest spot from longtime fan and Swedish singer-songwriter José González.

As elders of the enduring and flourishing Tuareg musical tradition, Tinariwen brought aboard younger Tuareg artists in making Hoggar. Due to political unrest in Mali, where the band’s founding members were based, Tinariwen relocated to Algeria to record the album at next-gen Tuareg band Imarhan's studio in the southern city of Tamanrasset.

Hoggar is named after a mountain range in Southern Algeria, a special place for the Touareg people and a “defiant marker of presence visible for miles, the Hoggar mountains are a symbol of a homeland for displaced people, while Tinariwen’s music continues to make space for future generations of their song,” as per a press release.

Tinariwen shared the first taste of Hoggar, “Sagherat Assani,” today featuring female vocalist Sulafa Elyas.

“The female voice is very important in traditional Tuareg music but it is increasingly hard to find female singers today owing to restrictions placed on them being allowed to sing and train,” longtime collaborator and producer Patrick Votan shared. “We were lucky to find singers like Sulafa as well as Wonou Walet Sidati, who used to record and tour with Tinariwen in the past, and Nounou Kaola, who also feature on this album.”

Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni further detailed “Sagharet Assani”:

“‘Sagherat Assani’ is a traditional song carried from Sudan to the Sahara, Japonais (one of the band founders who died in 2021) and I were in Al Kufrah (a city at the border between Sudan and Libya) in 1989, when I was beginning to learn the guitar. We met a musician who was playing this song and loved it so much that Japonais learned it and began performing it again and again, allowing it to travel and endure. This version features Sulafa Elyas, an extraordinary Sudanese singer and oud player now living in exile in France.”

Watch the music video for “Sagherat Assani” below:

Tinariwen has an international tour on the horizon, yet they will not be coming to North America due to a travel ban in the U.S.

“We were excited to bring our music to North America, but due to current travel ban, we won’t be able to perform there as part of this tour,” the band stated. “We know this is disappointing, and our team explored every possible option, but it was beyond our control. We look forward to returning to the U.S. as soon as we can and sharing our music with our fans there.”