Al Bilali Soudan: Tiny Desk ( Home) Concert

For the second consecutive year, NPR teamed up with globalFEST in January 2021 for a thrilling online music festival we call Tiny Desk Meets globalFEST: three nights, nine bands, and a world of musical traditions hosted by African pop star Angélique Kidjo. Now, we re posting all the sets from our festival as individual Tiny Desk (home) concerts. Bob Boilen, January 29, 2022 The family members of Al Bilali Soudan, from Timbuktu, Mali, are soughtafter musicians and griots. Led by Abellow Yattara, the band is a torchbearer of quintessentially Tamasheq (or Tuareg) music, shaped by a continuous exchange between the tehardent (lute), vocals and hand percussion. The words sung are similarly percussive, like an instrument themselves. This genre of music has been performed for half a millennium by Tuareg griots to celebrate the end of harvest and the changing seasons, heroic warriors and noble families. The globalFEST staff SET LIST Apolo Djaba MUSICI