Rock ’n’ roll by its very nature is made for rebellious outsiders. Or at least, it once was. It’s impossible to find anyone in North America who thinks that picking up a guitar is some kind of countercultural statement.

Which means that in 2007, you have to go to the Saharan desert to find some real rock ’n’ roll. In the land where Mali, Niger and Libya meet, you’d once find Tinariwen playing their electric guitars through battery-­powered amps in front of a campfire, singing songs of resistance and celebration over trance-inducing blues riffs and ululating vocal release.

Except that, with the success of their third album, Aman Iman, you’re more likely to find Tinariwen on tour in Europe and North America. Unlike the recent past of their native Tuareg tribe, however, this upheaval is entirely voluntary.

The Tuareg are a displaced Arabic tribe who took up armed rebellion against the government of Mali in the ’60s. In the ’70s, many of them moved to refugee camps in Libya, where Col. Ghadafi trained them to be proxy tools for his own imperial ambitions. The band’s founding members, Ibrahim Ag Alhabib and Hassan Ag Touhami, were active in the rebellion; legend has it that they rode horses into battle with a Kalashnikov on one shoulder and a Stratocaster on the other.

We’ve all heard Chuck D’s famous quote about hip-hop being the black CNN; in the Sahara, where there was no press or radio in the Tuareg’s native language, Tinariwen’s songs of self-determination were the only means of communicating the struggle.

“This didn’t make the group very popular with the authorities in Algeria, Mali and Niger,” explains Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni, who joined in the mid-’80s. “All these countries had a big problem with their Tuareg populations at the time, and they didn’t like the idea of this revolutionary message being distributed via cassette copies throughout the desert. If you were caught with a Tinariwen cassette on your person at the time, it made you suspect in the eyes of the authorities and could lead to interrogation or arrest.”

As peace accords were signed with Mali in 1992 and Niger in 1995, the members of Tinariwen focused on their music careers, organizing desert festivals and playing for Tuareg communities throughout northeastern Africa. They made a foray into France in 1998; their first proper international release, The Radio Tisdas Sessions, was recorded in 2001 by Robert Plant’s guitarist, Justin Adams. He was also behind the boards for their latest, Aman Iman, which has attracted a wider audience.

And no wonder: they claim to be just as influenced by Santana, Led Zeppelin and Johnny Cash as the Arabic and African music that surrounds them. The influence of Ali Farka Touré, dubbed “The King of the Desert Blues,” is unmistakable, though Tinariwen play with the full force of a well-seasoned band. “You have to realize that the guitar is a very new instrument,” says Alhousseyni. “Not only for the Tuareg, but for all the people of Mali. It was really Ali Farka Touré who pioneered the idea of playing traditional melodies on the guitar, which had always been performed on the ngoni or the kora or whatever. We all owe a lot to him.”

Aman Iman marks the first time that Tinariwen has translated their lyrics into English. For a band founded with the goal of political communication, their message is still vital years after the rebellion that inspired them. Tension in the region has been building since 2004, and new violence flared up earlier this year.

“This outbreak is very different from the one that we were involved with in the early 1990s,” explains Alhousseyni. “Back then, Mali was ruled by a very corrupt military dictatorship, and the Tuareg had absolutely no voice in government whatsoever. We had everything to fight for, and very little to lose.

“This time the conflict is much more complex, with different opinions and different points of view even inside the Tuareg community,” he continues. “It’s in our interest to be strong and united, because the mineral wealth of the desert will make it a more and more attractive place to external powers, both political and commercial. We don’t want to end up like the Ogoni people in the Niger delta. We have to defend our birthright, but it’s not easy.”

Even though they spend more time on the highways of the world than on horseback in the desert, there’s no question where they’d rather be. “We need more time at home to rest, to be with friends and family, and to be inspired so that we can create new music,” says Alhousseyni. When asked what he misses most about the desert, he responds, “Everything. Friends, family, the peace, the solitude, the quiet. When we arrive back in the desert, we’re like fishes finally being thrown back into the sea. We can breathe again.” 

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