Mdou Moctar

• Afrique Victime [Matador, 2021] ***
• Funeral for Justice [Matador, 2024] A-
• Tears of Injustice [Matador, 2025] **

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Afrique Victime [Matador, 2021]
In his U.S. debut, fluent if not quite thrilling Tuareg guitarist puts his ample chops on a well-justified display that, for non-Tamashek speakers, meshes barely if at all with its politically understandable but musically baffling title ("Chismiten," "Layla") ***

Funeral for Justice [Matador, 2024]
A protest record by Moctar's reckoning—against slavery, against uraniuim mines, against all the exploitations heaped on nations like his native Niger, with Libya and Nigeria north and south and arid strongholds Mali and Algeria close by to the west. I have no doubt the lyrics express and expand on his talking points. But for we who in this context needn't understand a word he's shouting, this is an exceptionally rich display of the kind of desert guitar the likes of Bombino and Imarhan deliver—only thicker, louder, angrier, and more rocking. A-

Tears of Injustice [Matador, 2025]
With his focus shifted from instrumental to vocal on this acoustic album, mere Anglophones are left to get a grip on not what he's protesting, but why, preferably in a hundred words or less ("Takoba," "Imajighen") **