Mohammed Ag Itlale 'Japonais'

Born ca. 1960 in Tessalit, in the Sahara Desert region of northern Mali. Dead: February 14, 2021, Timiaouine, Algeria. Poet, guitar player and composer, he is one of the musicians that play the "Tuareg blues", a barren form of electric guitar and songs in the Tamachek language. In the 1980s, he meets Ibrahim Ag Alhabib and other musicians in a Tuareg rebel fighters camp in Lybia. They gather to form the collective Tinariwen.