Tichumaren

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Tishoumaren, or Tichumaren, is a Tamasheq (or Tamashek) word derived from the French word chomeur, meaning "the unemployed." It is a style of music which has taken shape as an expression of the difficult social-political situation of the Tamasheq (or, as they are commonly referred to by people other than themselves, the Tuareg) over the last three to four decades. The emergence of this style of music, which has also come to be called, more simply, "guitar music,"^[1] cannot be separated, in particular, from the story of the band known as Tinariwen, or, more generally, from the emergence of the Tamasheq as a people and a culture from the violent turmoil that has been a running theme in the post-colonial history of the region which they call home, in Northern Africa. Today, the style remains politically critical, although it has become less associated with the violent rebelliousness out of which it took form.

[edit] Historical Background

The Tamasheq live in a region of North Africa that covers large portions of the Sahara across the modern-day national boundaries of Mali, Niger, Libya, and Chad, and also, to a lesser extent (at least, in the geographical extent of cultural influence), reaching into Burkina Faso and Nigeria. With the departure of colonial powers in the 1950s and 1960s (the Tamasheq were subjected to French colonial government after drawn out resistances at the turn of the 20th century), the lands inhabited by the Tamasheq were split primarily between the four new countries of Mali, Niger, Libya, and Chad. And, for the next few decades, in the context of shrinking natural resources (due to increasing desertification) and the other difficulties of the post-colonial politics and economies in the region, the Tamasheq have struggled on a number of fronts for survival.

In 1973, a major drought forced many of the Tamasheq people throughout the deserts to reconsider their traditional way of life as nomadic herders. Many took refuge in urban centers across the region, but with low levels of 'formal' education, given their traditional ways of life, even after being forced to take refuge in urban centers in the region, the Tamasheq were largely unemployed. This is where the term ishumar begins to be applied to young Tamasheq; and it is the point at which new cultural forms, more or less embracing this description of life, begin to arise among many of the economically and politically marginalized youths, and from which more or less rebellious and even revolutionary reassertions of cultural pride and autonomy come back into play.

Many youths took employment in a Tamasheq military unit being fashioned by Libyan military leader Muammar al-Gaddafi. Beyond military training and the receipt of weapons, in the Gaddafi-sponsored camps many of the young Tamasheq men were, also, exposed to popular revolutionary ideas of the time and to currents such as pan-Africanism, and to popular music. In the decades to follow, through which the Tamasheq have been involved in long, drawn out episodes of violence and rebellion against the various governments in the region---and having been on both sides of the victim-perpertrator divide---the different turns in social-political life have been interpreted and understood through the communication of history and contemporary life-stories through music. While, this is traditional in Tamasheq culture, what began with the band Tinariwen in the military camps sponsored by Muammar al-Gaddafi as a response to the call of necessity for understanding and communicating life in a new social situation, a new political context of marginalization and rebellion, has begun to grow popular as a new cultural (and, not just a musical) form for many Tamasheq.

Even given peace agreements in the last decade, the general turn away from violence as a means of resolving the difficulties of their situation has been, at the same time, a turn toward greater emphasis on assertion of autonomy through more cultural-expressive means. Performing in concerts and festivals both abroad as well as in the desert regions that the Tamasheq call home, combines traditions of communicating culture through music with ways of communicating to, and engaging with others on common terms, while mixing 'traditional' and 'modern' themes and styles.

[edit] Musical Style

Tishoumaren as a musical style diverges from some traditional styles of Tamasheq music in that the group of performers is, first, much smaller (10 or so, as compared to about 30), and second, among other factors, the music is based around the sound of the electrical guitar. The style has grown in popularity, much in line with the growth of Tinariwen's popularity, as they are regarded as the first Tamasheq group to feature electrical guitars, and thus as the originator of the style. During years of rebellion against the government of Mali (rebellion sponsored by al-Gaddafi, and in whose camps the members of Tinariwen came together and shaped themselves as musicians), the news sound-style of Tinariwen was spread by audio cassette through the camps. In the early 1990s the group began to gain wider exposure through association with the French band Lo'jo, out of which help they and a Tamasheq development organization were able to begin a now very popular annual event, the 'Festival au Desert,' or 'Festival in the Desert.' Through the exposure gained from touring and association with other already popular performers (Malian Ali Farka Toure, for example), and through the production and release of albums on CD (and, more recently, online), as well as through the incorporation of the Tishoumaren style by other groups, it has become a very popular style. But limitations to its popularity do exist, and they can be as simple as the difference of language between the performers and audiences: it has been suggested that the lack of greater success in the U.S. is due to unwillingness of media outlets to feature non-English language music, despite the appeal of the sound otherwise.

Other groups have incorporated the Tishoumaren style into their performances, but it is still not a style that is mutually exclusive of other styles. Tinariwen, and other groups such as Etran Finatawa and, to a lesser extent, Tartit, feature Tishoumaren along with other traditional Tamasheq styles. In this way, though it is relatively new, it can easily be seen how Tishoumaren is a style of music that is a continuation of the long cultural history of the Tamasheq.