YASSINE NANA - Modern Pop From Mauritania (1984-1989)

Can you imagine a Nouvelle Vague film with all the trimmings — jump cuts, razor-sharp dialogue — but starring an African actor? If your answer is no, you can save yourself the effort: it already exists, it's called "Soleil Ô" and it's signed by Mauritanian director Med Hondo. Shot between 1967 and 1969 and presented at Cannes the following year, it tells the story of a fellow countryman's difficult integration after landing in Marseille, amid thinly veiled prejudice and situations bordering on the grotesque. Watching it fifty years on, it all sounds sadly current.

If the protagonist is a mirror of his country, Mauritania confirms itself as a land sui generis: neither Maghreb nor Sahel, with a contradictory history dominated by the figure of Moktar Ould Daddah, the Islamic Republic remains one of the continent's most anomalous states. The music follows suit: just consider an outsider like Ahmedou Ahmed Lowla, with his cosmic-synthetic reinterpretation of traditional wedding music.

Nouakchott, however, also gave birth to a group as little-known as it was seminal: Ahl Nana, so aware of their own importance that they renamed themselves "L'Orchestre National Mauritanien" (not to be confused with L'Orchestre National de Mauritanie, more institutional but just as innovative). The first band to raise the electric guitar amid the Sahara sands, anticipating Ali Farka Touré by at least five years, they paved the way for the glorious tishoumaren saga, which finds a new, forward-looking peak in Tinariwen's latest masterpiece.

As the name suggests, this was a family-run enterprise: father as bandleader, daughters on backing vocals, elder brother (Ali) on guitar, younger brother (Yassine) as lead singer. The real talent of the stable is this last one, whose solo career would leave an indelible mark on the region's pop music: hear it to believe it on this anthology from the Bongo Joe/Sofa Records joint venture, the seventh chapter in the Maghreb K7 Club series.

Coated in a fragrant electronic sheen, singing now in classical Arabic, now in the local hassaniya dialect, his mix of disco-funk, reggae and desert vibrations takes no prisoners. Tracks like "Boustan Al Achar", "Fatma" and "Samraa" are urban-caravan anthems, chanted with great personality by a master of postmodern melisma. Ça va sans dire, the whole family turns out to support him, claiming its own space in the hallucinated psychedelia of "Telephone".

These eight tracks certainly won't be enough to shed light on the Mauritanian enigma, but if you're looking for "modern pop" Arab-style, all you have to do is hit the dancefloor.

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06/05/2026