Born in an encampment near the northern Nigerian city of Agadez, Omara “Bombino” Moctar was raised as a member of the Ifoghas Tuareg tribe – a traditionally nomadic pastoral people inhabiting the Saharan interior of North Africa. But when faced with the early ‘90s uprisings in Niger and Mali, Bombino and his family were forced to flee to Algeria, where he came into contact with a guitar left behind by relatives visiting from the front lines of the rebellion.

“I started to play the guitar when I was 12 or 13 years old when my family was in exile in Algeria,” says Bombino in French to his English translator. “My cousins would come to hang out and some of them had guitars. They knew how to play them but I did not. When I heard them play, it would pull me in completely. I knew from those moments that all I wanted to do was to be a musician and play the guitar.”

He learned his craft by imitating the songs of Tuareg musicians such as Intayaden, Tinariwen’s Abreyboun, Keddo, Niger’s Abdallah Oumbadougou and others who played the Ishumar style. Later, he was introduced to the music of Jimi Hendrix and Dire Straits and incorporated their styles into his own music.

After spending countless hours practicing his guitar and working the herds in the desert near Tripoli, Bombino began studying with renowned Tuareg guitarist Haja Bebe who asked him to join his band. Due to his young age and small stature, he acquired the nickname “Bombino,” a play on the Italian word for “little child.”

In 2009, while filming a documentary about the Tuareg, filmmaker Ron Wyman discovered Bombino and was so enamored with his sound that he brought him to Cambridge, Mass., to begin recording his debut album, Agadez (2011). The year after its release, Bombino embarked on an extended tour through Canada and the United States, which included a performance at the coveted Austin Psych Fest, an event curated by psych-rockers The Black Angels. A friend of The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach caught his set at the festival and called Auerbach to tell him about Bombino’s unique guitar acrobatics.

“Dan heard my music and he liked it, so he got in touch with my manager and proposed that we come to Nashville and record our new album with him,” says Bombino. "I did not know who he was at that time, but we listened to his music and I could tell that he would understand my music. Our musics are cousins.
“Dan was a perfect producer,” he continues. "He would give his opinions about what we would play but he would not force us in one direction or another. It was really a perfect partnership for

me. I cannot speak English and Dan cannot speak French, but we were able to communicate, no problem, with simple gestures and words, and my manager was also there to translate anything that was more complicated."

Attempting to capture Bombino and his group’s live sound, Auerbach – who recently won a Grammy Award for Producer of the Year – brought them into his Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville to cut what would become the follow-up to Agadez. The result is the critically-acclaimed Nomad – featuring songs recorded entirely in the Tuareg language of Tamasheq – with many numbers addressing the geopolitical situations surrounding the Tuareg people.

“On Nomad, I sing about peace, brotherhood, the importance of standing up and taking responsibility for your life, the importance of uniting and staying united – things like that,” he says. “Through its musicians, the Tuareg people have an opportunity to introduce themselves to people around the world so that there can be an understanding between us and them.”

With the help of Auerbach and his studio wizardry, Bombino churned out an album that successfully bridges the Ishumar style with those of his blues and rock heroes: snarling guitar lines lasso Tuareg chants while Eastern rhythms and clanging percussion instruments transform traditional African melodies into quasi-psychedelic journeys. He hopes that his music will bring wider attention to the problems occurring in the Sahel region of Africa and, in doing so, will bring to light the injustices that continue to plague the territory.

“It is hard to feel the suffering of someone else in your heart if you do not know them and do not understand them,” explains Bombino. "When you meet people in a nice situation like sharing

music, you first feel the human connection and that is the most important thing to create. After that, people can be inspired to care about what is happening with your people back home."