Mdou Moctar and Bartees Strange kick off a series of concerts programmed by Hanif Abdurraqib, Guest Curator-at-Large for BAM.

Performing for one night at BAM, Mdou Moctar and his eponymous band will play their entire album Afrique Victime for the first time live, along with other songs from the Moctar catalog. The prodigious Tuareg guitarist and songwriter, raised in Agadez, a desert village in rural Niger, boldly reforges contemporary Saharan music with 80s-rock pyrotechnics, full-blast noise and guitar shredding, field recordings, drum rhythms, poetic meditations on love, religion, women's rights, inequality, and Western Africa’s exploitation at the hands of colonial powers. Between DIY world tours, their landmark 2019 release Ilana: The Creator, and other albums, Mdou Moctar has earned an ecstatic international audience that has led them to BAM’s stage.

Producer and songwriter Bartees Strange, born Bartees Leon Cox Jr. in the UK, was raised in rural Oklahoma. His mother was an opera singer, and his father served in the military for decades. Bartees came of age between church choirs, country music, and hardcore bands before forming his own projects. In the words of Brooklyn Vegan, his music is “strikingly original.” In March 2020, he released the word-of-mouth EP hit Say Goodbye to Pretty Boy, covering songs by The National, and he has opened shows for Phoebe Bridgers. Live Forever​, his full-length debut record, evokes comparisons to Moses Sumney and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon.