The “Tamachek Vibration” How Musicians Rework Identity through Fluid Cultural Traditions

Abstract

The Tamachek of Mali are a unique people among the larger Tuareg subgroup of Berber people who live in Northern Africa. As part of a study abroad program based in Mali’s capital city Bamako, I was able to conduct a two-month research study among a small Tamachek community located there. These connections enabled me to perform with my Tamachek informants at two concerts and learn much about their traditional, yet fluid forms of music, dance, and dress and about the social cause they support through their art. Through the transformation of these traditions, my Tamachek informants renegotiate their own social and cultural identities. Not only does this research add valuable information about Tamachek musical traditions and fluid identities to the small body of research about them, it also provides an important look at the wider issue of praise singing in Mali and calls into question its validity in connection with the support of a social cause through musical traditions.