“Funeral For Justice” is the new album by Mdou Moctar. Recorded at the close of two years spent touring the globe following the release of 2019 breakout “Afrique Victime“, it captures the Nigerian quartet in ferocious form. The music is louder, faster, and more wild. The guitar solos are feedback-scorched and the lyrics are passionately political. Nothing is held back or toned down. The songs on “Funeral For Justice” speak unflinchingly to the plight of Niger and of the Tuareg people.
“This album is really different for me,” explains Moctar, the band’s singer, namesake, and indisputably iconic guitarist. “Now the problems of terrorist violence are more serious in Africa. When the U.S. and Europe came here, they said they’re going to help us, but what we see is really different. They never help us to find a solution.”
Mdou Moctar’s latest effort delivers the band’s most raw and politically charged work to date. The record took form amid Niger’s looming civil war and heightened political instability within the nation. The Tuareg guitarist and his band waste no time in addressing the violence and colonialism that have destabilized his people: “The world rises and falls, meanwhile my people’s fate remains uncertain,” asserts Moctar on “Oh France,” a poignant anti-colonial anthem.
The Fat Angel Sings 