BOMBINO

Rolling Stone calls this sizzling North African guitarist and singer “a perfect match of sound and soul”—a virtuoso of the desert. His dazzling live performance and stunning guitar skills have led music critics to compare him to Jimi Hendrix, albeit with trancelike arabic influences & windswept desert melodies. Born and raised in Niger, Bombino is a member of the Tuareg tribe, a nomadic people descended from the Berbers of North Africa. For centuries they have fought against colonialism and the imposition of strict Islamic rule. During his lifetime, the Tuareg people have fought the Niger government to secure their rights on numerous occasions, causing Bombino and his family to flee several times.

As a child he taught himself to play, eventually studying and playing with renowned Tuareg guitarist Haja Bebe. Niger was in political turmoil during Bombino’s teen years, and he was forced to live in exile in Algeria and Libya, where he watched videos of Jimi Hendrix and Mark Knopfler over and over in an effort to master their licks. Bombino worked regularly as a musician and also as a herder in the desert near Tripoli, spending many hours alone watching the animals and practicing his guitar. As Bombino’s legend grew, a Spanish documentary film crew helped him record his first album, which became a local radio hit. In 2009, Bombino met filmmaker Ron Wyman, who staged a concert to celebrate a newfound peace in Niger (a peace that would not last). That event established Bombino as a hero of the Tuareg people, and set in motion his newfound place on the world stage, leading triumphant sets at top U.S. festivals like Coachella.

Being constantly on the road for his music while also perpetually on the move throughout the Sahel region of Africa is the norm. So when the pandemic brought the world to a screeching halt, Bombino found himself in an unfamiliar space: being in one place. “I’m used to traveling virtually every week and then I was locked down for two years,” he says from his home in Niamey, the capital of Niger. “On the positive side, I get back in touch with my home and spend real time there with my family for the first time in a long time.” What resulted was the follow-up to 2018’s Deran, a record that turned Bombino into the first-ever Grammy-nominated artist from Niger. This new collection of songs, entitled Sahel after the African region spanning East-West from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, is Bombino’s most personal, powerful, and politically-minded work to date. It’s also his most sonically diverse, a quality he set out to achieve from the start, and one that is meant to directly mirror the complex tapestry of cultures and people that make up the Sahel region itself. The ten songs that comprise Sahel range in theme from the plight of the Tuareg to the ache of lost love to the follies of youth.

2024 global roots BASH schedule
All performances are ticketed @ LowDown, 108 N. Detroit, Tulsa, OK.

Thursday, October 3
7:00-8:00 – HEIRLOOM RUSTIC ALES TASTING – GET TICKETS (Tasting & Concert)
8:30-10:00 – CEDRIC WATSON & COREY HARRIS (Creole meets Deep Blues) – GET TICKETS (concert only)

Friday, October 4
7:00-8:00 – Complimentary Cheese, Olives & Vittles Social Hour (your Bombino ticket gets you in free)
8:30-10:00 – BOMBINO (Niger) – GET TICKETS

Saturday, October 5
7:00-8:00 – SPANISH WINE TASTING – GET TICKETS (Tasting & Concert)
8:30-10:00 – REFLEJOS FLAMENCOS (Spanish flamenco) – GET TICKETS (Concert Only)

Presented by OK Roots Music & LowDown, with support from George Kaiser Family Foundation.