Hacker Cinema
They Will Have to Kill Us First
2015 · Film · documentary · 105 min
Directed by Johanna Schwartz
In 2012, jihadists took control of northern Mali. They imposed one of the strictest interpretations of sharia law in history. On August 12th they banned music - radio stations destroyed, instruments burned and musicians facing torture, even death. Overnight, Mali’s most revered members of society – the musicians – were forced into hiding or exile. This film follows Mali’s musicians as they fight to keep music alive in their country. We witness fierce battles between the army and the jihadists, capture life over borders at refugee camps where money and hope are scarce, follow perilous journeys home to war ravaged cities, and for one band, Songhoy Blues, their path to international stardom.
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2 comments on Hacker News
My personal passion is the "desert blues" music that's mostly Tuareg. Start there with Tinariwen and Bombino. They're widely available in the West without much effort. They also tour heavily in the US, so keep your eye out for concerts!
From there, the Sahel Sounds label puts out a lot of obscure and interesting music on Bandcamp.
I can recommend two films as well. The first is "Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai" (Rain the Color of Blue with a Little Red in It), which is a Tuareg remake of Purple Rain, the first fiction movie in the Tamashek language. The second is the documentary "They Will Have to Kill Us First", which is about Malian musicians living in refugee camps due to the civil war in northern Mali.
That documentary leads to the band Songhoy Blues, who are from the same area but Songhoy rather than Tuareg. They are young guys who met in a refugee camp, and managed to score a British record contract. Upon seeing them live, my spouse said it was like seeing a young Rolling Stones. Very accessible, compared to more raw music like Tinariwen.
There's a lot more, but this is a good start.
I dream of going to Mali, and visiting Timbuktu to hear the music there. But until the jihadists are finally driven out, that's not going to happen. :( I have a friend in the State Department who also loves desert music, and she says northern Mali is an absolute no-go zone for Western tourists - like they won't even come rescue you.
There's a really great documentary from a couple of years ago called They Will Have to Kill Us First, which you would probably love. It's about musicians from northern Mali living as refugees from the civil war, and how the jihadists have treated musicians.
Also, keep an eye out for a band called Songhoy Blues, if they're ever in your area. They're in the documentary. They're Songhoy, not Tuareg (different ethnicity), and the band formed in the refugee camps with guys from different towns who never would have met otherwise. They tour a lot, and they're a lot closer to American/British rock and roll than most Tuareg music. I took my spouse to see them (I've seen them twice), and she said seeing their singer live was what it must have been like to see a young Mick Jagger. He's that good.