Straight outta the Sahara, Tinariwen’s music is rooted in bitter experience. But, as Tim Hughes finds, that doesn’t mean it’s downbeat. Far from it.

FORGET all those gun-toting harder-than-thou gangsta rappers.

If you want to meet a real bunch of hard men, make way for the rebel rockers who have taken on the worst the world can throw at them – and come out the other end alive… and smiling!

Tinariwen are as tough as they come. Touareg refugees from the drought-struck desert badlands of Mali, they know the true meaning of survival – trekking and riding for thousands of miles across the dunes of the Sahara, plastic petrol cans on backs, carrying just enough water to see them to the next town or oasis.

It was a harsh existence. And it got harder still in the 90s when the desert rebels were forced to take up their AK47s and fight for their survival. It’s a struggle which founder member Ibrahim Ag Alhabib knows only to well.

Part of the ranks of the Sahara’s ‘ishumar’ – named after the French word ‘chomeur’, meaning ‘unemployed’ – he and his people got off their butts to find work in the oil-rich states of Algeria and Libya, where they were often poorly treated, living in poverty in dusty settler camps.

Yet, it is back in the Sahara that this desert man feels most at home. There, he explains, things are… well, just simpler. “Life in Europe is like a battle. When I first came here, back in 2001, the whole place just seemed very tired and knackered to me. In the desert I feel at home, at ease and at peace. That’s where my inspiration is, that’s where my songs come to me.”

And that music is the blues.

Oh yes, America may lay claim to the title of cradle of the blues, but that music which rang out over the cotton fields of Mississippi and Alabama was born in the searing heat of West Africa, where the first slaves originated.

They may not yet be a household name here, but they are feted as heroes in North Africa – everywhere from Cairo to Timbuktu.

The band are currently on a rare UK tour, which tonight brings them to Oxford’s O2 Academy.

And, Ibrahim explains, there’s nothing like a spot of touring to bring out one’s inner nomad.

“When we’re on tour we live like we used to in the camps, or when we were young unemployed teenagers in exile in Libya and Algeria,” he explains. “We do everything together and share everything. That’s why touring is not too much of a problem.”

And while his poetic lyrics and tales of frustration, anger and everyday life chime with the experiences of generations of Touareg, it’s the music’s rousing vibrancy which has earned them such respect in Europe and makes their shows a spectacle.

Those Touareg melodies were forged in the very same camps that Ibrahim mentioned, alongside fellow ‘ishumar’ Inteyeden.

“We were mostly listening to traditional Touareg music at the time, and a lot of Moroccan and Algerian pop as well,” he explains. “We heard western rock bands like Led Zeppelin, Dire Straits and Elvis Presley too, but we often didn’t know what we were listening to. We just liked the way it sounded.”

And it has gone full-circle, with newer Western artists endorsing, and gaining inspiration from them.

Fans here include Coldplay, Brian Eno, Carlos Santana, Robert Plant, Henry Rollins and our own Thom Yorke. They were even invited to play the main stage at Glastonbury.

But, for Tinariwen, the fighting is not over yet.

An Australian mining company recently revealed that it had found deposits of precious uranium in Mali’s Kidal region, which could make Tinariwen’s home the second largest source of the mineral in the world.

“Nobody wants uranium,” declares Ibrahim. “None of the youth in Kidal want it, even those without any jobs.”

He has, it seems, turned from refugee and rebel to guardian of the Sahara – the real spring of Touareg culture and Tinariwen’s incredible music.

Tinariwen play the Oxford O2 Academy tonight. Their album, Imidiwan: Companions is out now.