Tamikrest

Tuareg guitar band led by Ousmane Ag Mossa, formed on the Algeria and Mali border in 2006, hailed early as Tinariwen's heirs, who have sung for their divided people in Tamasheq across six studio albums.

Origin
Tinzawaten, Mali
Years active
2006-present
Genres
desert blues, Tuareg guitar music, rock
Labels
Glitterhouse, Glitterbeat
Also known as
ⵜⴰⵎⵉⴽⵔⵉⵙⵜ

Tinzawaten

Tamikrest was formed in 2006 in Tinzawaten, a town on the border between Algeria and Mali, by Ousmane Ag Mossa, Cheikh Ag Tiglia and Ali Kalghlgh, all in their early twenties, who had all attended the school Les enfants de l'Adrar there. Ag Mossa, born in Tinzawaten, learned the Tamasheq guitar style from a 1998 cassette that Tinariwen's Ibrahim had recorded in Algeria, copying what he heard. He has said that hearing Bob Marley and Dire Straits on cassette in 2000 changed his musical vision completely. New unrest in 2006 pushed him and Ag Tiglia to argue the Tuareg cause through music rather than arms.

The name is glossed as junction, knot or coalition in Tamasheq, the language the band sings in. Ag Mossa translates it roughly as union, and ties it to his people being split across five countries. He told an interviewer in 2010 that the Tuareg have no diplomats or journalists of their own, so they depend on their music.

Dirtmusic and Bogolan

In January 2008, at the Festival au Désert in Essakane near Timbuktu, the band met Dirtmusic: Chris Eckman of the Walkabouts, Chris Brokaw and Hugo Race. They jammed in tents and on stage, including the Velvet Underground's All Tomorrow's Parties. In July 2009 Tamikrest backed Dirtmusic on their album BKO at Studio Bogolan in Bamako, the studio set up by Ali Farka Touré, and Ag Mossa gave the record his song Imidiwan. Straight after, in the same studio, they cut their own debut.

Adagh, produced by Eckman and released by Glitterhouse in February 2010, held Tamiditin among its eleven Ag Mossa songs. Andy Morgan, the former Tinariwen manager, called them Tinariwen's spiritual sons and the future of Tamasheq music, and NPR named them among five new African bands of 2010. They toured Europe with Dirtmusic that year, including Sziget. Toumastin followed in April 2011, recorded again at Bogolan with Eckman, and Songlines gave it five stars as the music of resistance. It included Tarhamanine Assinegh, written and sung by Mahmoud Ag Ahmouden.

War and Chatma

The Mali war began in 2012 and the band could no longer play in the north. Ag Mossa said they lost their rehearsal studio in Kidal, that in southern Algeria they had only the desert to work in, without electricity, and that they finished arrangements in hotels on tour. Members have since lived in Tamanrasset, in Paris and along the borderlands, and the band now draws players from Mali, Niger, Algeria and France. The French guitarist Paul Salvagnac first joined for a tour in 2012, when the rhythm guitarist could not travel, and the drummer Cédric Maurel came in 2013.

Chatma, their first record for Glitterbeat, was made in the Czech Republic and released in September 2013. Its title means sisters, and it is dedicated to Tuareg women during the upheaval in Mali. It went to number one on the World Music Charts Europe and won the Songlines award for best album of 2013. Ag Mossa said in 2014 that success had no value while his people were marginalised. A show from that tour, at the Burg Herzberg Festival in Germany on 1 August 2014, became the live album Taksera, released for Record Store Day in 2015.

Kidal to Assikel

Kidal, recorded in Bamako in summer 2016 and released in March 2017, was, in Ag Mossa's words, about dignity. Tamotaït, whose title he explained as hope for a positive change, was made mostly at David Odlum's Black Box studio in rural France and released in March 2020. After touring Japan, Ag Mossa returned to learn its traditional music, and the closing Tabsit brings in shamisen and Ainu tonkori. The album topped the Transglobal World Music Chart for April 2020.

The band made its Australian debut at the Sydney Opera House in October 2022 and played GlobalFEST in New York and a KEXP session in 2023. Assikel, their sixth studio album, was recorded live to analogue tape over ten days in Haarlem in October 2025, with Tinariwen's Ibrahim Ag Alhabib as a guest. Released in May 2026, it went to number one on the World Music Charts Europe. Ag Mossa said the subjects of the songs had not changed much, because the situation at home had not improved.

Members

Records

Songs

Tinariwen, Dirtmusic, The Walkabouts, Hindi Zahra

Where to go next

Official

Reference

Discography and data

  • MusicBrainz Release dates and per-track credits.
  • Discogs Sleeve credits, recording dates and early self-released CDs.

Writing and criticism

Interviews

Live performance archives

Film and video

Sources

  1. Tamikrest, Wikipedia
  2. Tamikrest, Glitterbeat
  3. Tamikrest's journey from Kidal to the world, Afropop Worldwide (2023)
  4. The future of Tuareg rock, Mail & Guardian (2010-05-28)
  5. Tamikrest interview, The Quietus (2013-10-16)
  6. Dirtmusic: BKO, Glitterbeat
  7. Tamikrest, Wikipédia