Tiris is a band formed by Sahrawi

refugee A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

s at the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf,

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. Their lyrics are about love, loss, and their long struggle and aspirations for independence in their homeland of

Western Sahara Western Sahara ( '; ; ) is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), while the r ...

. Their name honours of a southern zone of their country, known traditionally for being a land of holy men, poets and musicians. The 9-member group made their first international major performance at the Festival au Désert, in

Essakane Essakane is a rural commune and village of the Cercle of Goundam in the Tombouctou Region of Mali. The commune includes around 16 small settlements. The small village of Essakane is around 70 kilometers west of the town of Timbuktu. The co ...

Mali Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mali ...

in January 2006. The festival's director Manny Ansar defined them as "''One of the best performances this year-absolutely wonderful!! I am delighted Tiris were able to participate!''". Programmed for the opening night, they had to perform again on the last night by popular demand. In 2007, Tiris released their first album, entitled "Sandtracks", being the first release of British "Sandblast Arts" label, and touring

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

with the "Sandblast Tour", with venues in

South Bank The South Bank is an entertainment and commercial district in central London, next to the River Thames opposite the City of Westminster. It forms a narrow strip of riverside land within the London Borough of Lambeth (where it adjoins Alber ...

, Brighton Dome or the Musicport World Music Festival, and they were featured at

BBC Radio London BBC Radio London is the Local BBC Radio, BBC's local radio station serving Greater London and its surrounding areas. The station broadcasts across the area and beyond, on the 94.9 FM broadcasting, FM frequency, Digital Audio Broadcasting, DAB, ...

. Tiris performed at the "Ollin Kan Festival" in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

in May 2009. The band then made an August tour in

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and

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

, performing at the

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal populat ...

Festival,

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, Asaa and Follenslev.

Musical style

The band played the traditional Sahrawi music, the ''Haul'', but mixing it with other styles influences, like Desert Blues,

Reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...

Flamenco Flamenco (), in its strictest sense, is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura and ...

Jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

, etc... The group played traditional instruments, like the

tbal The music of Mauritania comes predominantly from the country's largest ethnic group: the Moors. In Moorish society musicians occupy the lowest caste, iggawin. Musicians from this caste used song to praise successful warriors as well as their patr ...

or the

tidinit Xalam (in Serer, or khalam in Wolof) is a traditional stringed musical instrument from West Africa with 1-5 strings. The xalam is commonly played in Mali, Gambia, Senegal, Niger, Northern Nigeria, Northern Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and ...

, but also uses

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass gui ...

keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

or even a drum machine.

Band members

* Ahmed Sidi Mufid AKA Mufeed - vocals * Mohamed Said Mohamed Salem Esouilma AKA Shueta - vocals * Ahmed Ahmed Zein AKA Ahmed Zein or Mohamed Salek - tidinit * Emhamed Ahmed Baba Ahmed AKA Mohamed Zein - electric guitar * Bauba Bleiel Embarek AKA Beba - keyboards * Embarka Zeju Ajeen AKA Embarka -

dancer Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoi ...

, background vocals * Selma Ali Did AKA Swelma - dancer, background vocals * Boubba Han Cheikh AKA Boubba - dancer, background vocals * Mohamed Hafsi AKA Momo - electric bass

Discography

* ''

Sandtracks ''Sandtracks'' is the 2007 debut album of the Sahrawi people, Sahrawi band Tiris (band), Tiris, published by Sandblast Arts on November 7. A special digital edition was released on October 5 through Believe Digital. The album was re-released in 2 ...

'' (2007)

References

External links

Old Tiris MySpace pageNew Tiris Official MySpace page
{{Authority control Sahrawi musical groups Musical groups established in 2005 Algerian world music groups