Performance 25 june 2022
Guitarist and singer Omara "Bombino" Moctar was born and raised in Niger, in the northern city of Agadez. His dazzling live performance and virtuosity on the guitar have led music critics to compare him to Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana and Neil Young. He belongs to the Tuareg Ifoghas tribe, a nomadic people that are part of the Imazighen, the "free people" of North Africa. They fought for centuries against colonialism and the imposition of strict Islamic rule. This led to Bombino and his relatives having to flee several times. During one such exile, relatives coming from the front lines of the uprising left behind a guitar, and Bombino began to teach himself to play. He eventually studied with the famous Tuareg guitarist Haja Bebe, who asked him to join his band. There he was nicknamed Bombino – a variation of the Italian word for “little child.”