Published 2:00 pm Wednesday, October 28, 2026

Nigerien guitarist Mdou Moctar spent much of the late 2010s and the first half of the 2020s touring around America with his four-piece band, building a sizable stateside fan base with their blistering fusion of African desert blues and electrified, psychedelic rock.

Before he fronted a globetrotting quartet capable of transcendental shredding, however, Moctar was simply a talented, self-taught guitarist, known for his low-key DIY recordings and renowned wedding performances in and around his home region of Agadez, Niger, on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert.…