Sun 9/29 @ 7:30PM
Les Filles de Illighadad is an against-all-odds story. That the young women from the rural desert village of Illighadad in the north-central African nation of Niger are making music — and playing Sunday evening at the Music Box Supper Club in Cleveland, Ohio — is extraordinary. The village is so isolated that the band’s leader doesn’t even speak Niger’s official language, French, only her native tribal language.
That woman, self-taught guitarist Fatou Seidi Ghali, is a member of the Tuareg people of the region, who have produced much distinctive music (Mali’s Tinariwen is a well-known example). But the guitar is virtually always played by men while women play a form of percussion/vocal music called tende.
Ghali appropriated her brother’s guitar and began to assimilate the sounds she heard around her. In 2016, accompanied by her cousin Alamnou Akrouni, she released a six-song EP as Les Filles on Portland, Oregon-based folkloric label Sahel Records, whose owner Christopher Kirkley met Ghali on a trip to Africa almost by accident.
“While Fatou’s role as the first female Tuareg guitarist is groundbreaking, it is just as interesting for her musical direction,” writes Kirkley on the Sahel website. “In a place where gender norms have created two divergent musics, Fatou and Les Filles de Illighadad are reasserting the role of tende in Tuareg guitar. In lieu of the djembe or the drum kit, Les Filles de Illighadad incorporate the traditional drum and the pounding calabash, half buried in water. The forgotten inspiration of Tuareg guitar, they are reclaiming its importance in the genre and reclaiming the music of tende.”
The ensemble will be touring the U.S. through mid-October. Tickets to the Music Box show are $15 in advance, $20 at the door. Come early and have dinner; doors open at 5. Cleveland R&B ensemble the Hue People open the evening.
musicboxcle/les-filles-de-illighadad-sep29/
Cleveland, OH 44113