Tamiditine

There is something instantly familiar about “Tamiditine”, the opening track on Moussa Tchingou’s EP by the same name.  With its its melodic, searching guitar line set against the consistent  drumming patterns, the intro has an Afro-Cuban tinge to it, but the track is actually based on the Indian song “Tum Hi Ho” from the 2013 film Aashiqui 2, which itself was based on the original musical for “A Star is Born.” Tamadine nicely encapsulates Moussa Tchingou’s approach to music and captures the cosmopolitanism of the wider Agadez scene: an Indian melody, Nigerian-influenced autotuned vocals (Nigerian music is popular in Niger, and many studios are run by Nigerians), and Tamachek lyrics that all come together in an unmistakably Nigerien sound.