Afrique Victime

In so many ways, the album represents the full realization not just of Moctar’s individual artistry, but of what’s possible when influences collide in unexpected ways. ... Stunning, unique desert flower.

If Afrique Victime tells us anything, it’s that Mdou Moctar’s fire and passion are drawn from his homeland. The results are staggering.

An exhilarating band set that mixes electric and acoustic instrumentation, it’s at once fiercely modern and as ancient as the Niger river. [Jun 2021, p.22]

He and his band are making truly tremendous guitar rock in a manner that is peerless in this era, and from anywhere on the globe.

Afrique Victime is the fullest portrait of Moctar’s gifts that he has offered yet.

It’s music for mending the soul and opening the eyes of skeptics to what music – what really good music – can do for us. No matter what walks of life we come from, there’s legitimate emotion attached to Mdou Moctar’s music, and it should shake any living, breathing being right to their core.

The brasher moments of Afrique Victime are at least as worthwhile, Moctar having assembled a crack band. ... If this guy only really has two main modes – flamboyant electric blues and downhome, tricksy folk-rock – he can scorch in both, making complaints churlish. [Jun 2021, p.53]

There is a beautiful, communal power in slow grooves like “Ya Habibti,” with its circling, mesmeric riffs and hand-clapped syncopations. “Asdikte Akal” moves a bit quicker, more of a trot than a shuffle, but also feels like a group endeavor.

Dynamic, but well-balanced, this collection is perhaps the most conclusive example of Moctar's multidimensional talents to date.

It’s made all the more thrilling by the fact that while Moctar is busy conjuring extraordinary sounds from his guitar, the rest of his band keep upping the song’s tempo. Pleasingly, he is no less affecting on his more gentle, acoustic material, as on stripped-back recent single Tala Tannam.

The biggest feat here, though, is how Afrique Victime feels upbeat and hopeful from start to finish. There’s no real sense of worry or anxiety in the love songs, and Moctar’s calls for unity are set to a loose soundtrack of unpredictable guitar. This is how free rock & roll should sound.

It retains the magic of previous releases, but it’s more expansive, massive even.

Mdou Moctar’s Africa Victime is a less out and out rocking affair than past offerings, yet it is a more nuanced and dynamic full length than anything they have delivered before.

From the gentle breeze of the Tala Tannam to the howling gale of lead single Chismiten, the little clumps of ambient sound - village chatter, footsteps, maybe a cockerel - hold their ground against every new gust of virtuoso fretwork. [Jul 2021, p.89]

Mdou Moctar’s energy for revolution is full force experience, as exhilarating as it is inspiring, and it is made more powerful by his sincere love and understanding of the Tuareg tradition. Afrique Victime bottles this fervency not only so more can engage with this resistance and its ideas, but also so we can be reminded of the nature of true rock 'n' roll rebellion.