Presented in partnership with Modo Live.
With Opening act Maya Ongaku
The name Etran de L’Aïr translates to “the Stars of the Aïr,” the mountainous region of Northern Niger. They are based in the town of Agadez, an urban center renowned for the electric guitar and the Western named “desert blues.” In the Sahara, this electric guitar genre is intertwined with social function. It’s a lucrative commerce, and gigging bands make their living in weddings, baptisms, and political events. Etran de L’Aïr is one of Agadez’s longest playing groups on the circuit. Yet they are also a band that has remained on the fringes, stars of the Agadez working class.
Etran is a family band composed of brothers and cousins, all born and raised in the small neighborhood of Abalane, just in the shadow of the grand mosque. Sons of nomadic families that settled here in the 1970s fleeing the droughts, they all grew up in Agadez.
Whereas other Tuareg guitarists look to Western rock, Etran de L’Aïr play in a pan-African style that is emblematic of their hometown, citing a myriad of cultural influences, from Northern Malian blues, Hausa bar bands, to Congolese Soukous.