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‘This music survived in a network of phones’: El Wali, the shapeshifting voice of Saharan struggle

Since the 1970s this band in Western Sahara, made up of Sahrawis who oppose Moroccan rule, have made spellbinding music – and are preparing only their second ever album

The traditional balanced the modern.” Sitting in her living room, furnished with large carpets and cushions, Shueta remembers the 1980s and early 1990s with the band: “We played in concerts from Libya to South Africa, from Portugal to East Germany to North Korea.” The result was a very good quality recording.” This was a fabulous album called Tiris, 13 songs played with three singers, electric guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, and tidinit, a traditional Sahrawi lute. Through people who were working in NGOs in Western Sahara, he got in touch with Sahrawi music producer Hamdi Salama, who introduced him to Ali Mohammed (the guitarist on El Wali’s Tiris), who told him about the recording session in Belgium with Oxfam.

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