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Rock and music of the Sahara fused together by a single story and a unique and overwhelming rhythm. Kel Assouf are by far one of the most interesting bands in the whole Saharan scenario, moreover with a base in Europe and a tour that will soon also touch the Bel Paese.
Anana Harouna, migrant leader
Kel Assouf was born in 2006 in Brussels, Belgium, thanks to the arrival in the city of Anana Harouna, founder and true mind of the group. Its history is very particular and has its origins in Agadez, one of the most important cities in northern Niger. It will be from here that, once he turns 12, he will be forced into exile in Libya, where he will receive military training. Once back home he will start organizing tourist trips within the Tuareg world and culture, in order to accumulate enough money to leave for Europe.
In Brussels, Anana will go in search of the best talents in West Africa, in order to form a band that could help him never forget his homeland. Kel Assouf in Tamasheq means “people of nostalgia” and fully expresses this link with the distant homeland. While forming the group, Anana took the opportunity to study and 3 years later managed to obtain a diploma in “organization and coordination of cultural institutions”; this will allow him in 2012 to organize the “Nomad’s Land” festival, which will also obtain the approval of the minister for local culture.
Rock of desert
After 3 albums, one of which was released this year, Kel Assouf have become a unique point of reference for the Tuareg people in Europe, thanks also to their unique and unmistakable style. No band of this type had ever gone so far into rhythms and melodies with such rock sounds, representing a real fusion between the two styles.
If in the other groups we could see strong tendencies in this direction, the Kel Assouf make it a real flag, bringing a decidedly lively and colorful soul to the desert, able to modernize once again their ancestral music and thus giving it a lifeblood. new and unpublished. A curiosity: Toulou Kiki, former singer of the group, stars in Timbuktu, a film in which she plays Satima, the wife of the shepherd Kidane.
We leave you under the playlist from which we will draw in these days, suggestions are accepted. Here you will find the stages of their tour, from 1 to 7 June they are in Italy between Savona, Ravenna and Turin.
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