Spotlight: Mdou Moctar

The GRAMMY Museum is thrilled to welcome Mdou Moctar to the Museum’s intimate 200-seat Clive Davis Theater for an evening discussing their latest release, Tears of Injustice, their career, creative process, and more, with a special performance to follow.

Mdou Moctar is a man: An incendiary Nigerien guitarist and songwriter. It is also a band. Alongside Moctar, the group consists of rhythm guitarist Ahmoudou Madassane, drummer Souleymane Ibrahim, and American bassist and producer Mikey Coltun. 

Their most recent record, Tears of Injustice, is the acoustic version of last year’s critically-adored breakout Funeral for Justice – the meditative mirror-image to the blistering original.

Tears owes its existence to a national catastrophe. In July of 2023, Mdou Moctar was on tour in the United States when the president of Niger was deposed in a coup. Moctar, Madassane, and Ibrahim were briefly unable to return home to their families. They decided to seize the opportunity to record a companion to the electric-guitar driven Funeral for Justice, one that reflected the newer and graver circumstances at home. 

The band chose to track Tears sitting together in one room, keeping the session loose, stripped down, and spontaneous. On Funeral for Justice, anger at the plight of Niger and the Tuareg people is plainly expressed in the music’s volume and velocity. On Tears, the songs retain that weight sans amplification. They are steeped in sadness, conveying the grief of a nation locked into a constant churn of poverty, colonial exploitation, and political upheaval. It is Tuareg protest music in raw and essential form. 

This summer the band will travel to Japan’s Fuji Rock and will perform throughout the US, including stops at Sound and Gravity and Ohana festivals.

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Member Check – In: 6:30pm

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Show Time: 7:30pm

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BAG POLICY: please note that only bags 9 inches x 6 inches and smaller will be allowed for this event. Vinyl, memorabilia, gifts, etc. will also not be allowed inside the building.   

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